


The Fatal American Need (to have a pretty good time)

by lucky_spike



Series: Armageddon and the Associated Entities [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adam Young Still Has Powers (Good Omens), Adam has an adventure, Coming of Age, Gen, How Do I Tag, Humor, Ineffable Godfathers, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Storm Chasing, Temporary Character Death, Tornadoes, demons can't fly, things get wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 173,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22872292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucky_spike/pseuds/lucky_spike
Summary: Aziraphale and Anathema exchanged a look. “B - But my dear boy. It’s a wonderful opportunity to be sure, but … must you go all the way to America?”“Well yeah.” Adam looked puzzled. “Got to, for sure. Figured I’d take the summer to really, y’know, research weather and study it in America.” Adam had recently started university and was studying meteorology, and he was quite keen on the subject. It made sense, Anathema and Newt reasoned. He always had taken a particular interest in the weather.“There’s weather all over the place,” Brian pointed out, tossing his head to shake his bangs from his eyes and successfully flipping his ponytail into his drink instead. He continued, nonplussed, “What’s America got that you’re runnin’ off for a few weeks?”Adam grinned wider, if that were possible. “Well, glad you asked Brian, because that’s the really brilliant part. I -” he paused, for dramatic effect, “- will be joining a storm chasing team.”-In which Adam goes to America to chase tornadoes, Crowley and Aziraphale follow to keep him safe, strange coincidences occur, and tornadoes aren't the only deadly thing around.Updates on Sundays, and sometimes Wednesdays.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Armageddon and the Associated Entities [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530020
Comments: 539
Kudos: 150





	1. One of the Madder Things Humans Do

**Author's Note:**

> All credit for the title goes to the artist: [The Mincing Mockingbird](https://www.mincingmockingbird.com/)
> 
> And thanks always to the Ace Omens discord server, you're all a bunch of bad influences and enablers and I love you.

**Chapter 1**

_ There is a curse. They say: _

_ May you live in interesting times _ . 

It is a phrase of damnation, of ill-wishes. Having spent a considerable amount of time in Asia some centuries back, Aziraphale was well-familiar with it, and had, in fact, lived through some  _ very  _ interesting times. Indeed, in rather recent history, all of the Earth had lived through  _ extremely _ interesting times, though only a handful still remembered it. 

In the opinions of all who did remember, however, that had been quite enough interesting times for one human lifetime, and individually, they each made their own concentrated effort to keep things thereafter as non-interesting as possible.

Well, they did. Until one of them didn’t.

-

In the years that followed the Nah-pocalypse, things … settled. Or, at least, found a comfortable routine as Adam slowly re-adjusted to life as the Not-Antichrist, accompanied, as always, by the Them. Anathema and Newt set down some roots in Jasmine Cottage on a more permanent basis, and Crowley and Aziraphale moved to South Downs (although Aziraphale maintained his bookshop in Soho three days per week, and Crowley kept his flat across from Parliament … because Aziraphale, he would remind the angel, wasn’t the only one with hobbies). 

Hell even started speaking to Crowley again, sort of. Shortly after what was colloquially referred to as “the Adam incident”, Satan well … went missing. Gone. Absent from Hell. And with no direct oversight and a little tincture of time, Beelzebub and Dagon had apparently decided to let bygones be bygones - or at any rate, they just pretended the entire cock-up had never happened*. Heaven was less benign, or had been historically, anyway, and so it took everyone by surprise when they started talking to Aziraphale again as well, in the form of succinct notes from Uriel requesting minor blessings and miracles, little things that Aziraphale probably would have done anyway, even if not charged with them. Perhaps Heaven, everybody reasoned, had decided that while Aziraphale was still an angel, it wasn’t like the blessings were going to do themselves, and if the Principality was going to stay on Earth he might as well take care of a few things that weren’t all that much trouble.

[*  _ Truthfully, they had, a year or two after Crowley’s trial, really taken the time to think about things together over a bottle of good whiskey and realized that they really weren’t that keen on fighting another war. They remembered the first one, after all. It hadn’t gone well. _ ]

It was all rather complicated, but it was quiet. And after the events of the summer of 2018, quiet was alright.

It was why Adam’s announcement at his birthday party - not the official party, with his parents, but what the Them fondly referred to as ‘the one for all the weird people’ - went over with rather more upset than might have strictly been expected. They collected group - the Them, Anathema and Newt, Crowley and Aziraphale** - were gathered in the garden of Jasmine Cottage, and as soon as Adam made his announcement, all muttered side-conversations and whispered discussions abruptly stopped. Adam stood at the front of the group, beaming, and said, unswayed by the shocked silence, “Brilliant, right?”

[**  _ Madame Tracy and Shadwell had been invited but had regretfully declined on account of Madame Tracy’s recent knee replacement. _ ]

“You didn’t tell me!” Pepper was the first to recover and, as always, was annoyed at Adam. “You must’ve been planning it for months - you couldn’t tell me?”

“Wanted it to be a surprise,” Adam replied with a shrug. “I’m gonna get loads of cool photos and videos. I’ll send them to you guys first, I promise.” Pepper’s posture relaxed, a little. She didn’t look like she was about to punch him in the shoulder, at any rate.

Aziraphale and Anathema exchanged a look. “B - But my dear boy. It’s a wonderful opportunity to be sure, but … must you go all the way to America?”

“Well yeah.” Adam looked puzzled. “Got to, for sure. Figured I’d take the summer to really, y’know, research weather and study it in America.” Adam had recently started university and was studying meteorology, and he was quite keen on the subject. It made sense, Anathema and Newt reasoned. He always had taken a particular interest in the weather.

“There’s weather all over the place,” Brian pointed out, tossing his head to shake his bangs from his eyes and successfully flipping his ponytail into his drink instead. He continued, nonplussed, “What’s America got that you’re runnin’ off for a few weeks?”

Adam grinned wider, if that were possible. “Well, glad you asked Brian, because that’s the  _ really _ brilliant part. I -” he paused, for dramatic effect*** “- will be joining a storm chasing team.”

[***  _ He had picked the habit up from Crowley. _ ]

“Wicked!” Brian and Pepper said in unison, both breaking into broad grins. Even Wensleydale brightened up. The assembled adults and adult-shaped beings, however, looked less enthused.

“Storm chasing,” Newt said slowly, over the now-excited chatter of the teenagers, “sounds rather dangerous, Adam.”

Adam nodded. “Definitely is. It’ll be alright, though. I think it’s been at least a few years since anyone’s died doin’ it.”

“ _ Died _ ?” Crowley winced. “Adam, are you sure -”

“You can’t talk me out of it,” said Adam, and Crowley knew it to be true with gut-sinking certainty. Not when Adam used that tone of voice. His powers were less, certainly, but there were still … effects. He relented slightly though, when he realized the assembled outside of The Them had expressions ranging from bewildered (Aziraphale) to incredibly nervous (Newt).

Aziraphale leaned over to Crowley. “I think I may be missing something.”

“They get in cars and chase tornadoes around,” Crowley responded in a low whisper. “It’s one of the madder human things you can do.”

“ _ Tornadoes _ ?” Aziraphale burst out, looking back to Adam, clearly frazzled. “Adam, I’m sorry, but I really do have to protest. Tornadoes are incredibly dangerous!”

“So we found out,” Anathema murmured, elbowing Newt in the side. Then, more loudly, “I’m with the angel, Adam - what did your parents have to say about it?”

Adam shrugged, unconcerned, his face framed as always by the blonde curls that were practically his trademark at this point. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Same things you guys are saying. I’m still going though. I leave on Sunday.” When more protests looked to be forthcoming, he used The Tone again. “I’m going and it’s final. Booked and everything. If I’m going to be a meteorologist I’m going to need to understand all kinds of weather, severe or not. I can’t just act like I have any concept of what severe weather is if the most severe thing I’ve seen is a tropical storm.”

“You promise you’ll send video?” Pepper asked, around a mouthful of cochito. “And you’ll call, of course.”  _ Especially me _ , was the thinly-veiled threat at the end. The Them were close - thick as thieves - but there was a special closeness between Adam and Pepper. Nothing that could be defined and, from what Anathema and Newt had been able to figure, certainly nothing romantic, but there nonetheless. 

“Absolutely I will.” He shrugged. “Everyone included. Anyway, that was my announcement. You can go back to whatever you were talking about before.”

They didn’t. Well, the Them did, although the topic of discussion was much more slanted toward severe weather and cyclonic phenomena than it had been previously. To the side of the garden the adults and adult-shaped beings, however, immediately put their heads together.

“He probably will be fine,” Crowley said, quickly. “Residual powers and all that. It’s … not ideal -”

“Tornadoes are extremely unpredictable,” Newt pointed out.

Aziraphale swallowed. “He is Adam; Crowley has a point.”

“Will it extend to those around him, though?” Anathema looked thoughtful. “Sure, he might not get hurt, but if he gets close enough to a tornado there’ll be debris and stuff flying. And his powers - what if he sets something off without realizing it?”

They all thought it over for a minute.

“He’ll probably be fine,” Crowley said, a touch less confidently than before. Even with the sunglasses, he looked worried. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Newt chewed his lip a little. “Would be fine if it wasn’t so far away, I guess. If he gets in trouble …” He trailed off. “It’d be hours before anyone could get to him to help. Would be nice if … well, you know.”

“You and I aren’t going to America any time soon, Newt,” Anathema reminded him, sparing a significant glance at her belly, which was showing the gentle roundness of still-early pregnancy. 

“You can fly for another two months, though.” Anathema glared. “Just saying.” Then, as one, they looked to Aziraphale and Crowley, who were already looking somewhat resigned.

“I don’t really care for America,” Aziraphale said morosely. Crowley sputtered around his drink as the realization of the suggestion finally landed somewhere in his brain. “Still …”

“You don’t know anybody over there?” Anathema offered. “Anyone who could keep an eye on him for you?”

Crowley snorted derisively. “Who do you trust to keep an eye on the wayward Antichrist?” He shrugged. “I know of a few demons over there, but I wouldn’t trust them any further than you could throw them.”

“Well yes, they’re  _ demons _ , but what about angels? Aziraphale?” Anathema looked toward the only present angel, eyebrow raised. “Surely there’s someone you trust.”

Aziraphale thought it over. “Adam,” he said slowly, “made a lot of the celestial host very … annoyed. Angry, even. I’m not sure how many would be sympathetic to the boy. Certainly some, but nobody talks about it.” He sighed. “And I don’t know who I could ask, to be honest. I’m not sure which angels are stationed where anymore. Not exactly getting the bulletins from Above these days.” He looked to Crowley. “The answer does seem somewhat obvious.”

The demon poked the angel with a smirk that fooled no one. “Yeah. Gotta make sure you’re ready to fly in case -”

“We’re going to America, Crowley.”

Crowley’s face fell. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t say that.” He looked to Adam, tall and fit and laughing with his friends. “He’s eighteen now, angel, surely he doesn’t need  _ babysitters _ -”

“He’s going hunting for tornadoes. In  _ America _ .” Aziraphale glared at the demon, and Anathema and Newt nodded encouragingly when the angel looked to them - just for a second - out of the corner of his eye. “Who knows what sort of dangers are over there. Not just weather, dear boy, but, well, there could be demons or angels or evangelicals or who knows what else, waiting to take their chance.” He sighed. “Tornadoes aside, the occult and ethereal are more than concerning enough. And away from England he doesn’t have our wards -”

“Yeah, alright, I know.” Crowley crossed his arms and glared - first at Aziraphale, then across the garden at Adam, who didn’t notice, and then to Anathema and Newt. Newt withered, slightly, like a pilea fighting the good fight against root rot, because the alternative is worse. “I hate America.”

Anathema looked surprised. “I didn’t know you’d been. Even better, you’ll be familiar -” but Crowley was waving a hand.

“It was years ago.  _ Years _ .” There was a tone there that suggested he didn’t much want to discuss it, and Anathema knew him well enough not to press it. “Don’t have the slightest idea what the place is like now. Probably horrible.”

“It’s not bad.” Anathema frowned, feeling vaguely like she should be defending her home country just a little against the onslaught of dread Aziraphale and Crowley seemed to be attaching to it. “There’s some nice people there, I’m sure you’ll probably have a fairly good time. Providing you don’t get sucked into a tornado.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Aziraphale said with finality. “We need to go. For Adam.” He looked back to the boy again. “But he can’t know.”

“No, absolutely not,” Crowley agreed, shaking his head. “We’re already meddling -  _ messin’ about _ \- and I don’t want to be  _ caught _ doing it.”

Newt looked puzzled. “Is it meddling if you don’t actually do anything? Like, just watching isn’t meddling, is it?”

Crowley nodded. “Ah, right. No, you’re right, Newton, that’s not meddling, that’s stalking. Much better.”

“ _ Crowley _ .” The angel and the demon glared at one another for a minute, and then, wordlessly, made a decision. Crowley took a swig of his drink, perhaps with slightly more prejudice than was strictly necessary. “We should fulfill our duty. As … guardians. Godfathers.” He ignored Crowley’s expression, which was mocking and childish and so incredibly typical that it barely hit Aziraphale’s radar anymore. Anathema covered her mouth with a hand. “And it’s just a few weeks. It’ll … it’ll be like a holiday. I’m sure nothing will happen, and it will be fine, and we’ll have a nice holiday in America.”

“That’s a contradiction and you know it.” Crowley sulked. “I’m bringing the Bentley.”

Aziraphale looked to him, eyebrows raised but expression mild. “Seems a lot of trouble to ship it for a few weeks -”

“I didn’t say I was going to ship it.”

Anathema leaned in to Newt, her lips to his ear, a gentle grin quirking the corners of her mouth. “And here we go.” Newt nodded, and then looked preoccupied with his drink.

“You’re not going to miracle a car across the Atlantic ocean.”

“ _ Why not _ ?”

“Because that’s ridiculous. You can find a suitable car for the summer in America. The steering wheel isn’t even on the right side in the Bentley.”

Crowley shrugged. “Or they’re all on the wrong side in America. I’m bringing the Bentley.”

“You will not.” Aziraphale looked to Anathema and Newt. “If you’re worried about your car, I’m sure we can find a place to store it for a few months -”

“I’m not  _ worried _ about the Bentley, it’s my -”

“You can keep it in the garage here,” Newt said, before he really processed the words leaving his mouth. He fought the urge to flee as Crowley’s total attention rounded on him. “I mean, Dick Turpin sits out front, anyway, and there’s nothing in the garage, and it’ll be out of the weather and -”

Aziraphale placed a hand on Newt’s shoulder and smiled, which didn’t entirely make the clenching feeling in Newt’s stomach go away, but did help a little. “That’s very kind of you, Newt. Would that make you feel better about leaving your car, Crowley?”

Crowley turned his glare from Newt - you could still see the snake eyes through the sunglasses, sometimes, Newt’s brain provided in a not-at-all-helpful manner, and it really did make you realize that Hell is only an ill-timed remark about a car away - to his drink once again. “I’m not talking about this right now.”

“Fair enough.” Aziraphale’s tone was pleasant, but also seemed to indicate that the discussion would be brief and not at all in Crowley’s favor. “Oh, I’ll have to book flights! You know, I’ve never been on an aircraft.”

“Great,” Crowley muttered at an ice cube. It started to melt.

“I can give you some travel websites,” Anathema offered, although she knew it was pointless. There would, of course, be two seats miraculously open on whatever airplane they chose. Probably first class. And they wouldn’t have to take their shoes off through security. Probably. “They have some deals sometimes.”

“Oh,  _ thank you _ , Anathema, really, but that won’t be necessary. I’m sure if I call a travel agent they’ll be able to -”

Crowley coughed. “ _ Travel agent _ ? What year is this? Because I could swear we already did 1985.”

“That’s enough out of you. I’ll figure it out. But thank you for the offer, Anathema.” He looked back to Adam and the Them, who had moved on from the discussion about severe weather to what appeared to be a spirited argument about football. “We’ll just need to find out when he’ll be traveling. Inconspicuously, of course.”

“Or you could just ask him.” Newt pointed out, sidling slightly behind Anathema’s shoulder in case of holy or infernal disapproval of his suggestion. “Doesn’t seem like that’s a secret, really.”

“No. No I suppose not. We can ask before we go.”

“Oh?” Anathema looked to them. “Were you going to go? Because I have a strawberry shortcake. It’s still in the freezer.”

“Well, not quite yet, I suppose.” Aziraphale looked to Crowley, who muttered something about needing a refill before stalking into the cottage. The horseshoe  _ pinged _ and a lick of flame burnt charred the wood around it, long since left unpainted in the constant onslaught of invited demons (well, just the one, really). Aziraphale sighed. “He’s sulking.” Anathema and Newt didn’t respond, just nodded sympathetically, hand-in-hand. “Of course this isn’t exactly my  _ ideal _ holiday, but, well, it could be fun! I’ve never been to America, and it’s been years for him, and, well, I’m sure nothing will happen.”

“Certainly not,” Anathema said, without a trace of certainty. 

Aziraphale looked to the cottage, and then sighed, a gentle smile settling at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll talk him around to it. He’ll buck up.”


	2. Liftoff

Adam left, as promised, on Sunday morning. Wensleydale drove to the airport, Brian with him up front, and Adam and Pepper sat in the back seat. The four of Them talked, laughed, reminisced. They did not talk about the summer when they were eleven, of course; they rarely did unless it was a special occasion. But Adam had the sense that it was all heavy on their minds, hanging thick in the air of the car. He hadn’t left England alone since then - always travelling with family or friends - and although he wasn’t particularly concerned about how things would go, the others were. He could see it in the way Wensley would glance quickly at him in the rearview, the way Brian’s leg didn’t stop bouncing the entire time they drove, or the way he would catch Pepper watching him carefully, when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Adam, for his part, couldn’t understand why they were worried. After all, nothing had  _ happened _ since then. Sure, lots of normal things had happened, and their lives  _ did _ seem to permanently include a witch, an angel, and a demon now, but other than that the supernatural events had been fairly unremarkable. Well, except for that time they’d summoned a demon. But that was one time and, to be fair, Adam had  _ told them not to _ .

Pepper hugged him fiercely when Adam got out of the car at Heathrow. He hugged Brian and Wensley too, and a tremendous part of him twinged at the way they were watching around him, the worry on their faces. His parents had looked worried too, but that was more because of the whole tornado thing, and even they hadn’t looked so over-wrought as Wensley did, wringing his hands and chewing his lip like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite come up with the words.

_ It’s not a big deal - I’ll be fine. No sense doin’ all this worrying _ , he thought, and then he immediately said, “Listen, guys, if I’m going to be in America then you have to make sure Dog doesn’t get in to trouble with my parents. My dad’ll make him sleep in the garden if he doesn’t behave, and he hates that.”

“No problem,” Brian said with a nod and a flicker of relief across his face, as if accepting a mission from a commanding officer. Which, in a roundabout way, he was.

“And you have to tell me if anything happens at home while I’m away, alright?” he continued, looking to Wensleydale, who was living at home while he attended university*. “Keep me informed an’ all that. Don’t wanna miss too much while I’m over there.”

[*  _ He was working toward earning his degree in accounting. He very much enjoyed his classes. _ ]

“Of course,” Wensley replied.

“And …” he trailed off, as he looked to Pepper, and then looked over the three of Them, shuffling his feet and re-adjusting his duffel bag on his shoulder. “You know. Call if you want. I got the international plan so if I’m not busy and I can talk then, uh, we can talk.”

“You better remember to call us too,” Pepper answered, arms crossed. She worried at her lower lip for a second, and then with somewhat forced candor, smiled. “Be safe, Adam. Can’t wait to hear all your stories.”

“I sort of hope you find a tornado, but also sort of don’t,” Brain mused. “Just don’t like, fly away like they did in  _ Twister _ or whatever.”

Adam nodded solemnly. “Man, I will do my best.” They laughed, the tension breaking a little, and Adam re-adjusted his bag again, taking a step backwards toward the door. “Alright. I better go, find the gate and everything. Oh, and I know Anathema and Newt probably have it handled, but if Aziraphale and Crowley need anything while I’m away, you know, look after them.”

Pepper looked doubtful. “They’re 6000 years old. What are we going to do?”

“Have common sense,” Adam replied, reasonably. “They’re not good at that.” The Them considered it, and in turn they each nodded.

“We’ll handle it,” Wensley assured him. 

Adam grinned. “I can always count on you guys. Alright, see you later! Text you when I land!”

He turned away, shoes uncomfortably loud on the airport concrete. He couldn’t see Them, but he knew they were waving as he left. In his guts, something twisted - nerves, definitely nerves - but he walked on, through the sliding doors and into the bright, modern airport, phone in hand. He paused, blue eyes flicking from sign to sign, until he spotted the sign for security. He took a few steps, boots squeaking a little on the floor, but stopped a few yards short of the escalator. He looked around.

He had heard Anathema and Newt and Aziraphale and Crowley talking during the party. He knew they were debating following him. He had almost confronted them several times over the past week, but he had held off. They hadn’t talked about it any more, and the night prior to his departure he’d stopped by Jasmine Cottage to say goodbye to Newt and Anathema, who wished him well and encouraged him to call if he needed anything. He’d even gotten a text from Aziraphale this morning, which read simply, ‘ _ Have fun in America! - A+C _ ’. If they were going to follow him, they certainly weren’t acting like it. And considering the involved parties, any subtlety or subterfuge was so improbable that he felt nearly certain they actually hadn’t done it. They were just going to, just ... let him go to America.

Well. He threw his shoulders back a little and lifted his chin. Fair enough. He was eighteen, after all. And he had some residual, well, powers, so that was something. Nothing significant, not anymore, he couldn’t raise the dead or change reality, but he’d be alright. He faltered as he went to take a step forward. 

Thing was … if Heaven or Hell was really going to come after him, they probably would have done it already, right? It had been seven years. And storm chasing wasn’t nearly as dangerous as all that. After staring down The Adversary, a tornado, though awe-inspiring, did lack a little bit of gravitas. Surely -  _ surely _ \- Crowley and Aziraphale would accept that, right? They wouldn’t bother following him all the way to America just for a lousy tornado. 

Still, he glanced around the lobby, looking for any familiar faces. Just in case. There were none. The nerves twisted again, but outwardly he smiled, and proceeded up the escalator.

Behind a sign about security, two human-shaped beings breathed a gratuitous sigh of relief.

\- 

**The night before…**

“I don’t want to go,” Crowley murmured, head in his hands, slouched onto the couch in the back room of Aziraphale’s bookshop. He had, for the past week, been forcing the issue. They’d  _ argued _ , an actual argument with shouting and everything, which these days was practically unheard of. And he’d lost, every time, because Aziraphale would always have a good point about infernal or celestial dangers, all tornadoes and any history of ongoing interest in the boy aside, and Crowley would, at length, give in.

Still, it was worth another try. One last time. “Angel, he’ll be fine, I swear, he’s eighteen, we can’t just - just  _ babysit _ him for the rest of his life.” He waved a hand helplessly. “Besides, if they were going to do something -  _ if _ \- they’d have done it already, right? Seven years, Aziraphale.”

“Which is hardly a blink to us, Crowley, honestly. And anyway - why not?” Aziraphale looked to Crowley over the top of his book, the lines of his face settling into a resigned expression of ‘here-we-go-again’. “Babysit him, I mean. Are you expecting he will outlive you?”

“No. But …”  _ But he needs to be normal _ , Crowley thought, without saying it.  _ The more we meddle, the bigger the target on him is. We need to let him be normal, like any other eighteen-year-old boy _ . _ Maybe if we just leave him alone, they will too. _ Another thought, a few layers down, whispered,  _ The angel is right - he isn’t normal _ . _ His powers haven’t entirely gone, even now _ . “I mean, he’s got to be a bit independent, doesn’t he?”

“Which is why we’ll be guarding from afar.” Aziraphale replied, prim, turning a page with care. “No interference unless he’s in danger.” He sighed. “I really am having a hard time understanding why you’re so opposed to traveling, Crowley. I don’t like it either, but it’s for Adam’s sake and if you’re right, and nothing  _ does _ happen, then what’s the worst we’ve done? Had a nice holiday?” Crowley looked sour. “Don’t make that face. Are you still angry you won’t have the Bentley?” 

“ _ No _ ,” Crowley lied. Sort of lied, anyway. He  _ was _ angry he wouldn’t have the Bentley - Aziraphale had made a point about Adam’s ability to sense miracles, and how recognizable an antique Bentley was besides - but it wasn’t all bad. They’d dropped it off at Jasmine Cottage that morning, tucked it away in the garage, and Crowley had watched as Newt walked around the old car and warily murmured something about taking good care of it. His expression when the lights flickered on and the car positively  _ growled _ was almost worth it. Almost. He sighed. “Just don’t understand why you can’t fly over there if he needs you. Seems kind of excessive, following him around like … like spies,” he finished, stumbling over the word a little.  _ Spies _ . A montage of all the James Bond films Crowley had ever seen (all of them) flickered quickly to the forefront of his mind, before he stuffed them back. This was Adam they were talking about, not some dastardly international criminal.

“It’ll be better if we’re close, just to keep an eye out. Because it’s at least an 8-hour flight, and then there’s the travel time to get where he is.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Crowley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You know what I meant.” There was silence, and he looked up, his eyes immediately meeting Aziraphale’s.

“Because if Adam’s in trouble,” Aziraphale said, quietly, face calm and expressionless, “I’d rather you be there as well, Crowley.”  _ You can’t fly _ , he doesn’t say outwardly, although he might as well have.  _ You can’t fly and I won’t go without you _ . “What if it’s a demon? With hellfire?”

“Point taken, but not sure what good I’ll do,” Crowley grumbled, and moved on. No sense dwelling on that, he thought. Not right now, anyway. “My main weapon at the end of the world was a tire iron, remember? Least you have a flaming sword.”

“Had.” Aziraphale smiled at him. “You did stop time, dear.” Crowley shrugged in an attempt to act like it was nothing, no big deal, just simple timestream manipulation. Internally, however, he felt the warm glow of pride. “That’s not something just anybody can do, Crowley! It was very impressive.”

“Eh, yeah. Ngh.” He looked into his wine glass - empty - and debated refilling it. Instead, he set it aside. “Probably not going to get much chance to sleep over the next few weeks,” he said. He stood, and stretched. “Think I might grab a few hours tonight.”

Aziraphale looked surprised, but then he shrugged. He didn’t sleep, not ever, not even after the Nahpocalypse, but Crowley did, with gusto**. “Reasonable. Should I wake you in the morning? The brochure said to arrive at least two hours before your flight, so that would be -” He stopped, because Crowley was walking away, waving his hands.

[**  _ Crowley had slept for three full weeks after Armageddon hadn’t happened, partially due to a soul-deep hangover from all of the day’s exertions, and partially because, well, he was in Aziraphale’s bed, and it was comfortable and … well. That. Aziraphale, to his credit, had only shaken him awake once, just to make sure he hadn’t died. The hissing he’d got in response was answer enough, and since then he’d adjusted fairly well to Crowley’s little sleeping habit. _ ]

“Whatever works, angel. See you in the morning.” He heard Aziraphale say something like goodnight, but it was muffled by the stairwell, and the sounds of his boots on the steps to the flat above the shop. He made sure to walk around upstairs a little - let Aziraphale think he was really settling in - before he pulled the door to the bedroom shut (it squeaked quite satisfactorily across the floorboards) and stopped. And breathed in.

His wings fluttered out with a soft susurrus, and he breathed out, relieved. Ruined by the Fall or not, letting his wings out was always a nice feeling, like taking off a tight pair of shoes at the end of the day. The left one - the good one, and the sinister one - flexed and flapped a few times, glossy feathers catching the air in spite of the missing ones, and causing the lampshade to rattle a little. The right wing creaked, and Crowley winced, stretching as much as the scar tissue and limited range of the ruined joints would allow. The feathers - more sparse even, on that side, than the left but no less glossy (he and eventually Aziraphale, too, had seen to that) - fluttered weakly with the motion of it. He sighed, and idly picked at one of the coverts which was coming loose. For ages - centuries - he’d fought tooth-and-nail against removing any of the feathers left to him, out of some deep-seated fear that they would never grow back. He’d already lost flight, just like all the other demons, grounded and doomed to crawl for eternity, but he still had his wings. Still had  _ some _ feathers. Other demons weren’t as lucky - Hastur had one mangled stump and the other wing was half-gone, with only a few marginal coverts that stubbornly refused to burn away. Crowley didn’t want to lose his. He’d always rather liked them, functional or no.

Of course, the feathers did grow back where they could, where there weren’t any scars. It only took him five hundred years to realize it. It took rather longer than a few centuries -  _ much  _ longer - to find someone he trusted enough to help him clean the bloody things up properly so they didn’t itch like Hell when he did let them out. He still couldn’t fly, but at least they looked good. 

If you have to go, go with style, he’d said, once, while the world was burning around him. He flicked the shed covert away and flapped again, enjoying the stretch of it all, the shine of the light off the black. Not that he was planning on  _ going _ , at least not in the permanent sense, he considered. He was definitely going to America, though, Aziraphale had made that expressly clear, and he was dam - blessed if he wasn’t going to look better than any cut-rate demon they might meet over there. 

He miracled his clothes off with a snap and stretched one more time, wings and all, before he collapsed, face-first, onto the tartan-print comforter. He didn’t move when he slept, didn’t stir, even hours later when Aziraphale leaned in to the room to check and smiled at him, a mess of feathers and tartan blanket. He looked dead, but it was easy enough to sense the energy - infernal but comforting anyway - and the angel returned to the shop, his book and his tea. He’d have to wake the demon up in a few hours, which was its own unique challenge that Aziraphale had finally got the hang of a year or two ago, but for now, there was the comforting routine of reading and tea, while his suitcase sat by the door and looked expectant.

-

**British Airways, Flight 191**

Adam had bought a ticket in economy, because he was eighteen and a university student, and it hadn’t seemed so bad. Three hours in, however, and he was re-thinking that decision. The upgrade would have been, what, another two or three hundred pounds*? He could have picked up a few extra shifts at the shop, maybe done some yardwork for people around the village and made that up, easy. He shifted in the seat, uncomfortable and stiff, and glanced across the other passengers to his right, out of the window to the endless blue expanse. 

[*  _ Adam was a bright boy, certainly, but the disparities in airline seating pricing still escaped him. _ ]

He’d been excited for this flight, a few hours ago. Traveling to America, chasing tornadoes, maybe spending an extra week to see some sights - it was the stuff he’d dreamed about as a kid^. Ninety minutes into the fairly routine flight, though, and the novelty had worn off. Flying was  _ boring _ , and you could only stare at the endless sky and the sea for so long before you started wondering what else you could do to entertain yourself.  _ I should have kept with crochet _ , he thought idly, as he watched the woman across the aisle knit happily, without a single sign of being bored.  _ Or that Pep or Brian or Wensley was here. _

[^  _ Although, it should be noted, not at a very crucial time in his childhood, or this may not have been his first American excursion. _ ]

He sat back in the seat, as much as it would allow, and pulled out a book. Aziraphale had given it to him, ages ago, and he’d read it once already, but it was a favorite. He had picked it up from time-to-time through the years, but never fully re-read it. Well, he thought, flipping open to the title page, no time like the present. It was relatively new for an Aziraphale recommendation - published in this millennium - and the angel apparently hadn’t thought much of penning a neat ‘Thought you’d like this’ on the blank flyleaf. Adam smiled, shifted around in his seat, and started to read.

Two entire airline sections away, two supernatural entities were having similar ruminations about air travel, although they had the good fortune of doing so together. “This isn’t too bad,” Aziraphale said to Crowley, who was laid back in the first-class seat and watching  _ Golden Girls _ reruns with a glass of wine. He didn’t have headphones on. He didn’t need them - not by some miracle, but because he’d seen this episode enough times to have the dialogue fairly well-memorized. The angel shifted slightly and crossed his legs. “Not as comfortable as my shop but -”

“Not bad for a metal tube hurtling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour?” Crowley suggested. “This is loads better than last time I flew anywhere.” He took a sip of wine.

“When was that?”

“1972.”

“Oh. Yes, I’d imagine it is, rather.” 

“More security, though. Way more security.”

“Yes, I wasn’t expecting that. I knew things were more secure now, you know, heard it on the news, but taking shoes and belts and all that off?” He shook his head. “You’d think with the body scanners it wouldn’t be necessary.”

“Well, you know. One guy hides a bomb in his shoe and there you go,” answered Crowley, who had performed a minor miracle through the security line to convince the agents that his shoes were just fine  _ on _ , thank you very much. Aziraphale had glowered at him about it. “Lucky they let you keep your trousers.”

Aziraphale looked down. “What’s wrong with my trousers?”

Crowley opened his mouth, and then thought better of it. “Never mind.” He took a sip of wine. “How’s he doing back there?”

Aziraphale paused in his reading, finger hovering over the page and eyes unfocused, just for a moment. “Bored,” he answered succinctly, before looking back to his book. “Bored, but … fairly happy.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows and studied his empty wine glass briefly. Motioning to the flight attendant for a refill he asked, “Nothing spooky?” with a distinct air of amusement.

“Nothing spooky. The plane is still full of perfectly ordinary people. And Adam. And us.”

“Tickety-boo,” Crowley drawled, watching the flight attendant refill the glass. “Thanks, love.” He gulped another mouthful of wine, and pulled headphones out of, apparently, his jacket but realistically, the bag of the businessman three seats to the left. “I’m going to get drunk.”

“Really?” Aziraphale looked surprised, blue eyes slightly widened and his mouth curved down at the corners into a frown. “They’ll be serving food in an hour.” He raised his eyebrows. “There’s ice cream.”

Crowley reclined further, and plugged the headphones in. “Enjoy it. I’ll sober up before we land, don’t worry.”

Aziraphale nodded, and glanced at Crowley's TV.  _ Golden Girls _ disappeared as the demon poked at the remote, and the movie selection came up. He flipped through the titles too fast for Aziraphale to see the offerings clearly, but when he settled on one the angel scowled, while the demon smirked. “Really, Crowley?”

He clicked ‘play’ on the title screen for  _ Snakes on a Plane _ . “I always wanted to watch this. What better time?” He laughed a little, entirely alone in his amusement. Aziraphale rolled his eyes, and went back to his book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Comments are always appreciated :)


	3. Touchdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i fell behind in updating. things have been ... a thing. but here we are, a day late and a dollar short but better late than never. (idiom party)

**Chapter 3**

_ Touchdown _ . BA flight 191, after an uneventful flight, landed at Austin International Airport at 4:17pm. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to, uh, Austin,” the pilot announced over the intercom. Adam, who had nodded off for the latter half of the flight, was looking out of the window eagerly, hands on his knees and feet bouncing. All the excitement, the nerves, the sheer  _ joy _ that this was really happening that he’d had when he boarded, and then lost when he’d gotten bored, came roaring back tenfold as the brown scenery slid by outside. “Local time is 4:18pm, and outside temperature is about 84 degrees, which is about 29 centigrade. We’ll be arriving at gate -” Adam zoned out. Outside of the airplane, ground crew directed the jet to the gate in question, but it didn’t matter, not to Adam. He wouldn’t be meeting anybody at the gate, anyway. 

He turned his phone back on, and sent a quick text to his parents, and then another to the group text that included the Them and Anathema. He paused, debating whether or not to also text Crowley and Aziraphale. Hopefully the international plan he’d paid for was as good as it seemed, and his dad wouldn’t give him an earful about international rates when he got home, but, well, maybe just in case … but then no, certainly they’d hear through the grapevine, anyway. He stuffed the phone into his bag instead, and pulled out the slip of paper he’d written the instructions for meeting up with the storm chasing team. Meet at the baggage claim. Right, easy enough. He had to pick up his duffel bag anyway.

Disembarking the plane took, in Adam’s opinion, ages. They let all the posh people in first class off first, and then business class, and finally economy. He held his backpack straps tightly, shuffling down the aisle in the line, and tried to look calm and cool, not like a kid on Christmas morning, in spite of the excitement bubbling inside of him. He’d be looking for a woman, Rachael, who was tall and tanned and dark-haired. They’d video-chatted extensively in the lead-up to the excursion, and he was fairly certain he would recognize her on sight. Still, she’d said she’d be holding a sign, too, so best to look out for that - 

He paused, halfway through first class. Sniffed. Something smelled of … sulfur. Sulfur? And a rainstorm. It reminded him of Aziraphale and Crowley’s place, and the memory jarred him enough that he looked around for the duo, blue eyes scanning the rows of first-class seats. He didn’t see them, of course, or any signs of them, although he wasn’t sure what that might have entailed. Still … Nah. He shook his head, and kept shuffling. They’d told him to have a good time. They wouldn’t have managed to keep anything secret like this, not those two. For godfath - no, guardian ang - well, not really … guardian supernatural entities, they weren’t particularly subtle and as a unit, Adam thought fondly, only slightly brighter than they were individually. Which wasn’t saying much*.

[*  _ Adam did know, actually, that Aziraphale and Crowley were each quite intelligent. They helped him with homework, after all. But book smarts, he reckoned, and actual common sense were vastly different, and while they might be brilliant in their own right intellectually, as a duo they at times struggled with concepts like pre-planning, not telling everyone their secret plans, and interacting with normal humans like they themselves were normal humans _ **.]

[**  _ Adam knew they weren’t, but a little effort sometimes wouldn’t go amiss. There was, of course, the incident with The School Play. Crowley had been forgiven, eventually, but it took approximately one (1) metric tonne of candy in gifts, a generous donation to the school’s art department, and a weekend at Alton Towers for the entirety of the Them, all expenses paid. _ ]

The air on the jetway was dry, and hot, and reminiscent of Madrid, the few times Adam had been there to visit his sister. He took a deep breath, grateful to finally be off the plane and back on terra firma, and hustled toward baggage claim and customs. He found his duffel, and made it through customs - it wasn’t any trouble, just a line which Adam managed to tolerate by looking around and taking in the sights of the airport which had, through creative architecture, attempted to resemble a modern art installation but instead mostly looked like a government building with a bit of window dressing. 

“Enjoy your vacation,” the woman at the customs desk drawled, with an accent Adam had previously only heard in movies. His heart skipped a beat, and he beamed. 

“I will do, thank you so much.”

And that was it.  _ He was in _ ! He didn’t skip through the exit from customs, although it was a near thing, and quickly started looking around at the assembled crowd, scanning the faces there for anyone that looked familiar or, failing that, a sign that said ‘Adam Young’. He found it, eventually, held by Rachael, just as she’d looked on video chat, herself looking among the faces of arriving travelers for Adam. She caught sight of him as he started toward her, boots still squeaking on the linoleum, and waved him over, her face breaking into a friendly grin. “Adam!” She seized his hand as soon as he offered it, and shook with bone-crushing strength and no small amount of enthusiasm. “Hey, welcome to Texas! So good to finally meet you!” She had an accent too, Adam realized, sort of southern but not like the woman at customs, just a hint of that. He’d have to find out where she was from.

“Great to be here,” he enthused, and he meant every word of it. “I’m so excited, this is really an amazing opportunity.”

“Glad to hear it!” she laughed. “Hopefully we can find you some storms, huh?” She looked over his bag, eyebrows raised. “You got everything? Need anything else here? The rest of the crew is waiting outside - the other student researcher got here this morning, so we’ve just been hanging out around the city while we waited.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m totally ready.”

She nodded, satisfied, and headed for the door, Adam tagging along at her shoulder. “Great. The truck’s parked in the will-call lot, let me just call Noel and he can pull around. Let’s wait inside, though -” she held out a hand to stop Adam before he stepped through the sliding doors. “Kinda warm out there. Definitely warmer than England, huh?” She grinned, and then Adam heard a tinny voice on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, hey, I got Adam, can you bring the truck around? Thanks.” She hung up, and stuffed her phone into her jeans pocket before she propped her hands on her hips. “So I’ll introduce you all when they get here, but basically it’s gonna be four of us. You know me, I’m a meteorologist and I guess the main guide, but Noel is the second half of the team. He’s a climatologist, the driver, and a photographer too, but since it’s just the two of us we both kinda wear all kinda hats.” She pointed to Adam. “You’re one of our student researchers, and we have another guy with us for this session. Hope you don’t mind if we put you to work.”

Adam laughed. “It’s what I signed up for!”

“More fun that way, anyway.” She chuckled as she watched a variety of vehicles drive by outside, picking up travelers as they did. “Better than those storm tours that just drive around lookin’ and not much else. We gotta get closer to get the data. Anyway, other guy that’s with us goes by Lucky, I’ll let him introduce himself, but he’s studying climatology at, uh … somewhere in Iowa, I think. I think you guys are the same age.” She waved a hand. “Whatever, I’ll let you guys hash it out, we’re gonna have plenty of time in the car.”

“Sounds good.” Adam nodded, and adjusted his bag on his shoulder. 

“Anyway,” she went on, “plan tonight is to take you guys out to dinner, kind of get to know each other and everything, go over the plan for chasing, yadda yadda, and then we’re gonna hit the road early tomorrow to get north.” Her eyes widened, and she gestured for Adam to follow her outside. “There’s Noel. Anyway, yeah, we’re heading north -” she strolled off the curb and into the lane of traffic without much concern for oncoming cars. Adam, well-accustomed to this after years of interactions with Crowley, followed her without hesitation. “- ‘cause there’s a big system forming around the Oklahoma panhandle, and we might see some action day one.” She wagged her eyebrows at him. “Start off with a bang, right?”

“That’d be wicked.”

She chuckled. “Wicked, huh? I like that. Here’s the boss!” she called, as they pulled up alongside a red pick-up truck. Adam’s eyes widened. Americans, he thought, really knew how to do pick-up trucks. He’d seen pick-up trucks in England, of course, but this monster dwarfed most of them. The extended cab and the bed cover just served to make it look  _ bigger _ . And it wasn’t the only one of that size parked at the curb - he could count four just in the immediate vicinity.

Well, he had heard things about Texas. 

“Hey!” a man called over the roaring engine, and Adam looked up to see the driver standing on the sideboard, clutching the luggage rack with one hand and waving with the other. “I’m Noel! You can throw your bag in the back, Rach’ll show you where to put it with all the equipment.” He grinned. “Gotta get movin’ before we get a ticket.”

Rachael rolled her eyes. “We won’t get a ticket,” she said to Adam, in a tone that probably would have been a whisper had she not had to shout over the commotion of the pick-ups lane. “Here,” she showed him to the back of the truck, dropping the gate and revealing a bed packed full of bags, boxes, and expensive-looking meteorology equipment, “you can put your bag here, next to the camera bags.” He did, and she threw the gate back into place, brushing her hands off and turning her beaming smile to him once again. “You ready to hit it?”

“Yes,” he said immediately, still smiling. He wasn’t sure he’d stopped since he’d gotten off the plane. “Let’s do it.”

She slapped him on the shoulder. “Love the enthusiasm, kid. Load up!” She climbed into the front passenger seat of the truck, and Adam hauled open the rear passenger door, climbing onto the footboard and sliding into the seat. Across from him, a suntanned boy - yeah, about his age - with a scruffy beard and dark hair pulled into a bun, smiled at him with a wave. Adam waved, but then was distracted when Noel stuck his hand into the back to shake Adam’s.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Young.”

“You can call me Adam, really,” he assured Noel. “Thanks for having me.”

Noel grinned. He was a middle-aged man, brown-skinned and freckled, with straight, dark hair that hung around his ears and across his forehead. “Hey, if you’re willing to work and don’t run off at the first sign of golf-ball sized hail, it’ll be a pleasure,” Noel replied with a laugh. “Alright, let’s get you guys a taste of Texas. Everyone good with barbecue?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, in unison with the other guy in the back seat. Noel nodded, and the truck roared forward, out of the airport. 

“So you’re from England?” the other student said, turning his attention to Adam and offering his hand to shake. Adam took note, as he shook the guy’s hand, that there was … a hint of a London accent? Just a little? No, couldn’t be. “I grew up around London, ‘til I was about twelve,” he went on. Oh. Yes, then.

“Really? Funny old world,” Adam replied. “Name’s Adam Young. I’m from Tadfield - it’s a little town out in Oxfordshire.”

“Huh. Never got out that way, at least not that I remember.” He looked puzzled. “Although there was an air base there my Dad might’ve been working out of at some point … huh. Anyway.” The guy sat back in his seat and shrugged. “My name’s Warlock Dowling, but please  _ do not _ call me Warlock.” He rolled his eyes. “I think my mom was hopped up on pain meds when she named me. Everyone calls me Lucky.”

Adam nodded eagerly. “Cool, okay. You’re studying climatology?”

“Climate science, yeah. I start in the fall,” Lucky replied. “You are too, right?”

“Meteorology, yeah.”

“It’s so cool, isn’t it?” He looked out of the window, gesturing to the cityscape passing by as they rolled down the highway. “The whole Earth! Man, when I started learning about weather and geology and stuff in seventh grade, once I came back to the States …” He waved a hand. “Forget it. I used to make weather maps for fun. Drove my parents  _ crazy _ .”

Adam laughed, genuinely, and nodded. “It’s awesome. I was eleven,” he said, with absolute certainty, because he wouldn’t forget that year for anything, “an’ this lady - she’s a friend, now, but she was new to town then - gave me these magazines that were talking about climate change and severe weather and the rainforests and stuff, an’, I dunno, just had an interest ever since. Studied a lot on my own, outside of school, when we moved on to like, biology and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah. So you’ve never been to the States before?” Lucky smirked. “That’ll be an experience for you too.”

Adam shook his head. “No. I mean, I’m as excited for that as I am for the weather, honestly.”

“Good!” Noel interjected from the front seat. “You’re gonna get a hell of a tour of the midwest, see all kinds of stuff. We’ll go over it at dinner, I think we got a map too, so you can kind of get an idea of where we’ll be. And, you know, if the weather don’t pan out like we hope it will - hopefully it will pan out, but you never know - there’s always parks and monuments and stuff we can stop off at instead.” He smiled at the backseat passengers approvingly in the rearview. “I’m from Wyoming myself, so I can give you the local tour if we end up that direction.”

Lucky’s eyes widened. “ Seriously, like Yellowstone? That’d be awesome. I’ve never been, always wanted to go.” He looked to Adam. “You know about Yellowstone? It’s supposed to be amazing.”

“I’ve read about it.” Adam answered, mind racing over pictures he’d remembered seeing at Anathema’s and in magazines about the American midwest and tornado alley. “Yeah, it’d be cool to see it.”

“Well, we’ll have to see what the weather is doing. You never know how things are gonna go in this business.”

Rachael grinned at them over her shoulder. “That’s what makes it exciting.”

“An’ sometimes real boring,” Noel added.

“Sometimes,” she agreed, with a wink to the students. “But we’re not gonna think about that. You guys are here to study some storms, we’ll get you storms.”

The conversation continued on, through the drive to the barbecue place, and then all through dinner. They went over the route - starting south, around the Oklahoma/Texas border, and then moving around as needed with the storms. They talked equipment - cameras and recording equipment, laptops, hot-spots, as well as some remote monitoring equipment that Rachael hoped to drop if there was a great deal of lightning, which was her particular interest. Adam and Lucky listened intently, contributed as needed, and ate so much barbecue throughout the entire thing that Adam felt fairly nauseous by the end of the meal. Judging by Lucky’s expression when they stood from the table, he did too.

“It was just so good,” Adam lamented once back in the truck, his hands over his stomach.

Noel nodded solemnly in the front seat, hanging a right into a motel parking lot. “A common mistake. Sleep it off tonight, we got an early start in the morning.” He parked the truck well away from the door - none of the parking spots, Adam imagined, would have been big enough - and looked into the backseat. “Five AM work for you boys?”

Adam ignored Lucky’s quiet ‘oof’ and nodded, slinging his backpack over his shoulders. “I’ll be ready.”

“Fantastic.”

\- 

**Several hours earlier …**

“I feel like I’m covered in grime,” Aziraphale griped, as they meandered their way through baggage claim and toward the rental car desks. “Is that normal for air travel?”

“Can’t be, you only just spent ten hours in an aluminum tube with the re-circulated air of a bunch of other people.”

“Touche.” He cracked his neck and frowned. “I need a shower.”

“You know,” Crowley said slyly, handing his shoulder-bag (black, obviously) off to Aziraphale, “had you let me ensure the Bentley would be waiting for us outside we could already be on our way to a nice, lovely hotel room with a hot shower and  _ not _ waiting in line at a rental car desk.”

Aziraphale huffed. “It’s not a long line.” He caught the look Crowley gave him, and turned his nose up a little. “I’m going to wait by the door. There will be a shuttle, apparently.”

“Marvelous.” 

The angel watched from a distance too far to hear while the demon negotiated with the man at the desk. There were some subtle gestures, a raised eyebrow from Crowley, some significant stammering from the man, and eventually, he handed over an envelope. Crowley smiled and swaggered away from the desk, toward Aziraphale, who watched him suspiciously.

“What was that about?”

“Got us an upgrade.” Crowley took his own bag back*** and led the way to the shuttle, waiting outside in the heat. Aziraphale’s suspicious glare turned to a grimace when they stepped into the pick-up area, fighting back the urge to loosen his bowtie against the humidity and oppressive heat. They were back in the air conditioning of the shuttle soon enough, though, and sat down side-by-side, Aziraphale with his suitcase between his knees and Crowley with his bag in his lap. 

[***  _ Aziraphale had wondered what he’d packed in there, since Crowley invariably always miracled his clothes on and off, but he suspected it was hair products. _ ]

“What kind of upgrade?” Aziraphale asked pointedly, as the van doors closed - improbably, there were no other passengers to pick up, and Aziraphale suspected there was some light infernal interference that led to that state of affairs - and the shuttle rumbled away from the curb. “If we walk into that rental car lot and there’s a vintage Bentley -"

Crowley groaned. “ _ No _ , angel. If I’d brought the Bentley over I wouldn’t be bothering with this bloody shuttle. I got us a bigger car, is all.” He glanced at the envelope. “Had us in some little economy thing, probably only had a four-cylinder engine and a governor.”

“Don’t all rental cars have a governor?”

“I imagine this one will be broken.” Crowley gave the angel a cool look, a dare to say anything. Aziraphale didn’t take the bait. “Any case, I told him we needed four-wheel-drive.”

“Do we?” Aziraphale looked surprised.

Crowley shrugged. “Watched a show on telly before we left. They go all over, dirt roads sometimes, figured it’d be smart to have. Plus, it was the only thing with the bigger engine.”

“Does the Bentley have a big engine?”

Crowley looked toward the ceiling, expression neutral. “Acts like it does.”

“Crowley …” Aziraphale lowered his voice, in case the shuttle driver was listening in, although the young man looked cheerful and blissfully unaware of their conversation. “Please don’t do anything  _ infernal _ to the rental car.”

“Me?” Crowley looked back to Aziraphale quickly, expression twisted as if he’d been wounded. “Wouldn’t dream of it. There’s already one semi-sentient demonic car in the world, and it’s currently in a garage terrorizing a wages clerk. That’s more than enough for one planet.”

Aziraphale sat back in his seat, prim, hands folded in his lap. “I agree. Good. Glad we’re in agreement.”

They finished the shuttle ride in silence, Aziraphale looking out of the window to the passing landscape, which was mostly buildings so close to the airport, and Crowley apparently dozing, although it was hard to tell with the sunglasses. Which seemed, Aziraphale thought, as he looked out of the window, to be a fairly wise addition in this kind of weather. He may need to get himself a pair, should the opportunity arise. Not that he needed them, but, well, it wouldn’t hurt to look the part. 

The shuttle lurched to a halt, and they stepped off, Crowley handing the driver a roll of green dollar bills without a word as he went by. “Thank you so much,” Aziraphale added, on his way by, smiling at the stunned driver. “Excellent driving, very pleasant and observant of the speed limit. Have a lovely day.”

“Thanks.” The driver watched them go.  _ What weird people _ , he thought, his eyes sliding from their receding backs to the roll of money in his hand.  _ Can’t complain, though _ . He tucked the bills into his pocket, and drove off, back on his regular route to the airport. He  _ would  _ have a nice day, he thought. Things were already looking brighter.

Aziraphale didn’t ask, ‘is this it?’ as they approached the nearest car. It wouldn’t be. It was green, and small, and he wasn’t sure what kind of upgrade Crowley had managed but he was fairly sure that this was not a large enough car. He didn’t ask ‘is this it?’ at the next car, either, but in that case it was because the car was so obviously  _ it _ .

It was huge, and black, and it looked menacing just sitting in the parking lot. Crowley clicked a button on the key fob - that was novel, Aziraphale thought - and the lights flashed while a chirp sounded. The demon hoisted open the back hatch - Aziraphale blinked at the sheer  _ size _ of the inside of the thing - and tossed his bag in, followed by the angel’s.

“It’s bigger than the Bentley,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. Crowley grunted, and started toward the right side of the vehicle before, if his annoyed expression were anything to go by, he remembered that this was America, and changed direction. Aziraphale closed the back hatch and headed for the passenger side, frowning at the height of the step onto the footboard. No car had any business, he thought vaguely, being this large.

Already sat back in the driver’s seat with the keys in the ignition, engine running, and his arms crossed, Crowley was glaring at the stereo. He glanced over when he saw Aziraphale, and for a minute, his expression softened. “Ah, angel, you might want to … uh, wait outside a minute.”

“I thought you said no funny business with the car,” Aziraphale said flatly.

“Nothing funny.” Crowley looked back to the stereo, his expression hardening again. “Just need to reach an … understanding.”

Aziraphale sighed, and unfastened his bowtie, tossing it to Crowley who caught it with practiced ease. “Alright.” He stepped back down, and started unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt. “But don’t take too long - it’s hot out here.”

“Only be a minute, angel.” The door shut. Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Hullo,” he said to the car, drawing the word out. “4-Runner, eh?”

To this point in its 45,000 miles, the Toyota 4Runner had never had a single thought. Of course it hadn’t - it was a machine, an inanimate tool of transportation. It had happily transported families, salesmen, concert-goers and, on one occasion, secret agents without a hint of self-awareness or even a tinge of consciousness. That was why the car was surprised to find, suddenly, that this was no longer the case. 

The radio station flickered uncertainly.

“I have a feeling,” Crowley went on, while the car considered that it had never recognized a driver before, “that I’m going to be spending entirely more time with you than I’d like to. So just to be clear: I don’t like you, I probably will never like you, and there is very little you can do that will not, ultimately, disappoint me.” The electronics flickered again. Anxiety, thought the car. What was anxiety? Why did it know that was what it was feeling? “Really, this can only end one of two ways for you: you don’t disappoint me  _ too _ much, and I return you at the end of this bonkers road trip to your safe rental agency, where they’ll clean you up and you can go on being a nice rental car,  _ or _ you disappoint me too much and -” he leaned closer to the radio, and the hiss cut through the static of the electronics and silenced the squeal of interference between high-tech electronics and supernatural forces “- I’ll leave you in a ditch in flamesss, sssee if I don’t. Underssstood?”

The engine shuddered. The driver - Crowley, the car thought, although it wasn’t sure how it knew that name, or why it was even  _ thinking _ about it in the first place - sat back and breathed out. “Right. Alright, angel!” The passenger door opened again and a passenger - the car would have gasped, if it could, although it did manage an extra-strong blast of air conditioning - climbed back in, radiating love and light and  _ safety _ . Without understanding how, or why, the car switched its stereo immediately to a country-music radio station that was currently playing  _ Somebody Help Me _ by Kenny Rogers. Crowley glared at the stereo and murmured, “Not a good start.”

“Did you, you know, do whatever you needed to do?” the angel asked, gesturing vaguely to the dashboard.

Crowley put the car into reverse as he said, cryptically, “We’ll see. Hotel first, then dinner?” 

“Yes, fine. Do you know where Adam is?” He considered it. “Only I wouldn’t like to lose him so early on in the game. Again.”

“We can recon after dinner,” Crowley said, pulling into traffic and immediately running another car off the road. Aziraphale winced. “He told me the name of the team he’s going with, I found a picture of their truck online. We’ll drive around and look for it.”

“Unless he’s already left the city.” Aziraphale wrung his hands, nervous. “You don’t think they would have?”

“Nah. Got a text from Anathema that Adam said they’re not leaving until the morning, and they’ll be going north.” He ran a red light, prompting blaring horns from either side of the intersection and a whine from the engine of the 4-Runner. “Don’t have much beyond that, but we can find him.”

“Austin is a large city.”

“Not as big as London.” He shrugged. “We have all night, we’ll find him. Let’s get some wine into you and you’ll be fine.”

“Perhaps.” Aziraphale looked out of the window as they drove down a highway, cars whizzing by on the right as Crowley passed them at - well, the speedometer didn’t bear looking at. He swallowed. “It’s been some time since I did a reconnaissance job.”

“Bodyguarding, more like,” Crowley said, conversationally, yanking the steering wheel to the right and flying down the exit ramp to the hotel. “Been a minute for me, myself. But It’s like … oh, you know.” He drummed his fingers on the wheel, irritated. “Like - like something you learn to do and never really forget.”

“Swordfighting?” Aziraphale suggested. 

“Maybe.”

Aziraphale had made the reservations under his name, and checked them in with the pleasant woman at the front desk. Overall, it was a very nice conversation - she was telling him about places to eat in town, especially where to get good sushi - and he was just getting ready to bid her a good day and take his leave when, from behind him, Crowley shouted, “Riding a bike!”

The woman blinked. “There are, uh, bike trails along the greenbelt -” but Aziraphale was waving a hand. “Oh?”

“He remembered something from earlier,” he explained with a wan smile, as he picked up his suitcase. “He does this sometimes. You get used to it.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Okay. Well, have a nice trip! Enjoy America!”

“Thank you. I’m sure we will,” Aziraphale replied, following Crowley toward the elevators. As they waited for the elevator to arrive, the clerk looked down to her computer - such a nice man, a little strange - and smiled a little when she heard him mutter to his companion, “You really need to work on that, dear.”


	4. And Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale enjoy Austin, get the lay of the land, and learn some surprising news.

“You really think sushi is a good idea?” Aziraphale asked Crowley, while he watched the demon fiddle with his jacket collar in the hotel mirror. “We are in America, Crowley, and you know I did think we should try to get a bit of the local flavor while we’re here.” He gave up his attempted at dragging a brush through his hair, still damp from the shower, and turned his attention to his shirt cuffs instead.

Crowley considered this, pulling his t-shirt down and then back up again. “Right. Well, angel, I’m not opposed to anywhere else but let’s put it like this.” He turned to Aziraphale, hands spread. “It’s supposed to be a great sushi place, and we’re about to embark on at least 3 weeks of hauling up and down the American midwest, which isn’t exactly known for its sushi. Roadside barbecue? Yeah. Terrible fast food? Absolutely. Hole-in-the-wall diners with great desserts? Undoubtedly. Fresh sushi? Probably not. And if the goal is to minimize miracles during this thing, if you get a bit peckish for some sake nigiri then you’re just going to have to wait until we’re back in civilization.”

Aziraphale hummed. “Well. When you put it that way.” He gave Crowley a look. “I hardly think the American midwest is  _ uncivilized _ , though.”

“We’ll see about that.” He turned back to the mirror and re-folded his collar once more, flipping it back up and looking satisfied, although Aziraphale would have been hard-pressed to describe what, exactly, he’d changed. “Definitely not known for its sushi.”

“No. No, I suppose not.”

Crowley turned, and then raised an eyebrow. “No waistcoat?”

“It’s hot out.” He frowned as Crowley grinned. “Don’t start with the whole ‘this is nothing compared to Hell’ nonsense, dear. I know that, but not all of us struggle with thermoregulation.”

“Fair enough. It’s more casual, too. Very … American.” He offered his arm. “Shall we?”

Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile a little as he took the offered elbow. “I think we shall, Crowley.”

Dinner was delicious, and Aziraphale had to hand it to Crowley: sushi was really a good idea. Especially if he was going to be at least 3 weeks without. The demon didn’t eat, not unusual, but he seemed to appreciate the wine well enough, and when Aziraphale took the opportunity to compliment the chef (in Japanese, naturally), Crowley chipped in that he thought the restaurant was quite nice, too*. They tipped the waitress generously, and took their leave, Crowley begrudgingly sobering up before they clambered into the massive vehicle to start combing the city for any signs of Adam and the other storm chasers.

[*  _ Crowley did not speak Japanese particularly well, and Aziraphale had tried for years to help him with grammar, syntax, and pronunciation, without much success. Still, he had mastered a few phrases, and ‘very nice establishment’ was one of the more socially-acceptable ones he’d grasped. _ ]

“How do they know where the storms are?” Aziraphale asked, as they cruised down a side-road, Crowley looking sharply into the parking lot of a low-cost hotel. “It’s not as if they’re scheduled occurrences.”

“They’ve got laptops and the like in the car,” he replied, faint and distracted. “Radar and GPS and all that. They follow the storms that way and go to the ones that look most promising.”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows, and turned to scan the parking lot of a Red Roof Inn. “Quite technological.”

“Yeah, it’s a whole thing.” Crowley slowed to study a truck in another parking lot, and then shook his head and pulled away. “I brought the stuff to do the same thing, s’back in the room.”

“So that’s what was in that bag.” Aziraphale considered this for a minute. “And, ah, who are you expecting to  _ use _ said equipment, Crowley?” The SUV stopped at a red light, and Crowley suddenly looked thoughtful.

“Huh. Didn’t think about that.” He shrugged, and looked over to the car next to them idly. Aziraphale, focused on the topic at hand, didn’t notice the revving of the other car’s engine. “You could learn,” Crowley said. Aziraphale, lost in thought about technological advancements in meteorology, didn’t register the increasing distraction and, under that, the devilish glee. 

“I’m not much good with computers.” He sighed. “I do have the old accounting machine, but -” He stopped, because the 4-Runner’s engine revved rather loudly. Alarmingly. He looked over to the demon. “Crowley?” Something caught his eye. “Crowley, this car wasn’t … I’m certain this wasn’t a manual transmission when we picked it up yesterday.”

“Wasn’t it?” Another hum of the engine. The radio crackled, and songs shuffled through the speakers, seconds at a time, as the SUV cast around for something that would suit. It paused on a song by - who else? Aziraphale thought - Queen, but then moved on, searching through a few more before settling on something with a heavy bassline, electric guitars, and a prominent drum piece. It was bebop, and Aziraphale didn’t like it. Crowley looked thoughtful. “It’s better.”

Aziraphale did have to hand it to the car: the vocalist’s shouted “Go!” coordinated perfectly with the light changing from red to green and Crowley, predictably, slamming the gas. Relatedly, it also coordinated with Aziraphale’s rhyming yelp of “No!”

Tires shrieked and the SUV roared forward, while Crowley laughed maniacally as he shifted through the gears and wove around slower traffic down the long street. The other car - the instigator, Aziraphale tried to assure himself, although he knew Crowley had probably tempted them into it without even trying that hard, the old snake - was a smaller outfit, two doors and sleek, with an iridescent paint job and chrome flashing on the tires. It was also, to Aziraphale’s horror, keeping pace, roaring along beside their car, in spite of surrounding traffic and Crowley’s absolutely discorporation-defying steering.

“Crowley, what are you doing?” he half-yelled, half-groaned. “You’re going to get us killed! Or arrested!”

The demon whooped. “Just a bit of fun, angel. Hang on!” Another gear shift, and the 4Runner accelerated, hitting a highway on-ramp and roaring onto the freeway. The other car, momentarily behind, followed suit. 

“We’re supposed to be looking for Adam,” he reminded Crowley, right hand with a white-knuckle grip on the ceiling handle and the left with an equally tight grip on the center console. “Crowley, please -”

“We have all night to find him.” Crowley glanced to the left, and caught sight of the other car, prompting him to accelerate. The dashboard in this vehicle was much larger than the Bentley’s - vast even - and although Aziraphale was moderately terrified for the state of his corporation )he couldn’t imagine Heaven being inclined to give him a new body these days) he did risk a lean over to check the speedometer.

Ah. That was a mistake. He sat back, and pressed himself against the seat. Silently, as they wove through other cars and played leapfrog with the other racer, Aziraphale prayed. Crowley, for his part, laughed over the song blaring from the speakers, and drove, only ever taking his eyes off the freeway ahead to check the progress of the challenging vehicle. The 4-Runner groaned in protest as Crowley quickly changed gears to slow down, swerve around a box truck on the right shoulder, and then accelerate again, rocking back into the lane in front of the truck and taking off. The other car, slowed by a vehicle only going about 20 miles per hour over the speed limit in the passing lane, had to brake hard, and for a few blessed moments, Aziraphale thought it was over. Crowley would slow down now, surely.

Instead, the demon leaned out of the window to better make a rude gesture at the other car. There was a blaring of a horn, and in the rearview mirror, Aziraphale saw the other car break free of the traffic and start to catch up. He groaned, hand over his eyes, prepared for another round of acceleration, but was surprised to hear, over the rushing wind of Crowley’s open window, someone yelling, “Hey, man, get off next exit!” Crowley yelled something in response - very rude, Aziraphale thought - but slowed down anyway, guiding the car off the freeway, tailed by the other car.

“What are they doing?” he asked, cautiously, as Crowley braked again, and turned hard into the parking lot of an International House of Pancakes. The car lurched into park, and Crowley hopped out. The 4-Runner, relieved, shut itself off without any miraculous input at all. 

“Probably looking to fight. Don’t worry, angel, I’ll handle it.”

“Fi -  _ Fight _ ? Crowley, this is  _ America _ , they probably have  _ guns _ !” He jumped out too, half-jogging around the back of the massive vehicle until he fell into step beside Crowley. The other car, glimmering under the fluorescent lights of the parking lot, shut off, and two young women stepped out. Yes, definitely American, Aziraphale thought, with a disapproving look toward the ripped jeans and artfully torn t-shirts. The woman who had been driving had a baseball hat on. Backwards. Aziraphale rolled his eyes. Americans.

“ _ Dude _ ,” the driver said. “No joke, man!” To Aziraphale’s surprise, when she reached for Crowley, she didn’t attempt a stab or a punch, but rather grabbed his outstretched hand and shook it enthusiastically. She looked to her companion, laughing. “Told you this guy’s like my dad’s age! The fuck you learn to drive like that, man? You drive like a bat outta hell!”

Crowley smirked. “Bat out of London, actually - it’s harder driving there than in Hell.” 

The other woman crossed her arms, her expression one of pleasant surprise. “Shit, dude, you’re British, too?” She flipped her long braid back over her shoulder and smoothed a lock of dirty blonde hair down. “Now I’m really impressed - you stayed on the right side of the road and everything.”

The driver rolled her eyes. “Shut up Leanne, it’s not that hard to remember after like, a week. This your ride?” She approached the SUV, hands on her hips. “Don’t see too many of these that can race like that, you know.”

Crowley winked to Aziraphale, and then strolled up behind the driver, hands in his pockets. “It’s a rental. We just flew in this afternoon. Sorry, didn’t catch your name.”

“Call me Mary. Who are you, dude?”

“Good name, Mary,” Crowley said, grinning back at Aziraphale, who scowled. “Used to know a Mary. Great lady. You can call me Crowley.”

“It’s short for Mariel. Mind if I look under the hood?”

“Be my guest.” He followed her to the front of the car, sauntering along leisurely. Aziraphale and Leanne followed behind, Leanne studying Aziraphale and Aziraphale still glaring at Crowley. The hood of the car popped up, and Mary whistled.

“How’d you end up with a rental with a manual and a V8?”

Crowley leaned a hip against the bumper and crossed his arms. “Oh, you know, only the finest Enterprise rentals had to offer.” If Mary found that suspicious, she didn’t remark on it, save to nod approvingly and slam the hood of the car shut.

“Well, anyway, thanks for the race. Super fun. Don’t think I’ve pushed Bella up past 110 in a while.” She shook her head at this appalling state of affairs. “Everybody else around here knows me and backs off before we hit the highway. Poor girl never gets room to run.”

“Tragic. Mustang, is she?”

“Yeah, had her from new,” Mary said, smiling fondly back at her car. Aziraphale could  _ see _ Crowley soften to that. “Leanne and I have put all kinds of work into her - if we hadn’t got stuck in traffic she would’ve had this thing on the straightaway for sure,” she added, patting the hood of the rental. “You got me with the traffic, though.”

“It’s an art.”

Leanne had since circled around to the front of the car with the rest of them, and gently slid her hand into Mary’s. She looked to Aziraphale, head cocked. “Who’s your friend?”

“Ah, Azir - er, Ezra,” he corrected quickly.

“Nice.” Leanne looked from Aziraphale back to Crowley. “Are you guys -”

“What do you drive back home?” Mary asked, ignoring Leanne’s line of questioning, for which Aziraphale felt he should probably owe her a debt. 

“The Bentley. It’s a coupe - vintage.” Crowley added.

Mary’s mouth opened a little. “Woah, no joke? Shit, dude. You got pictures?” His phone was already clearing his pocket before she’d finished the question. Aziraphale shook his head.

“It’s cool,” Leanne commiserated, patting Aziraphale on the shoulder as Mary stepped away, the better to look at probably every single one of the photos of the Bentley Crowley kept on his phone. She was already marveling at the condition - “I’ve looked after it,” Crowley said proudly - and Leanne went on, “She’s got like four thousand pictures of her car on her phone, too.” She shook her head, and then brightened up. “So what’re you guys doing in Texas? You come in for a festival or something?”

“Oh, no, no, we’re here on holiday. Vacation,” he added, in case she hadn’t understood. She giggled.

“Yeah, I got it. That’s cool. Why Texas?”

He thought about it for a second. “Just seems very American. I’ve never been, and it’s been years since Crowley last left England. Thought we would mix it up a bit.”

Leanne nodded solemnly. “Greatest state in the nation. Well, Mary’s partial to Nevada, but she’s wrong. Anyway, that’s cool. So you just driving around, checking out the night life?”

“Something like that,” he lied. 

“You should try Rain on 4th,” Leanne suggested. “I think you’d like it. Great music, really great drinks and uh, I think you guys would fit in with the crowd there.”

Aziraphale pretended to think it over. “Rain on 4th. I’ll say something to Crowley. We were just thinking of turning in, though, finding somewhere to stay.”

“That’s why you kept slowing down in front of hotels.” Leanne, suddenly, sounded relieved. “We were wondering about that. Like, Mary thought you were looking for a race, obviously, but I was like ‘what if they’re murderers stalking their next victim’?” She laughed. “That’s a relief, anyway!”

“Oh!” Aziraphale forced a laugh, but he was sure he hadn’t been able to hide the shock on his face before she noticed. Murderers? “Oh, my dear, no, definitely not murderers. No. But, ah, would you have any recommendations? For places to stay, I mean.”

Leanne put her head to the side. “What kind of place you guys looking for?” She looked from Aziraphale, back to Crowley, and then to Aziraphale again. “I mean, the nicest chain place is going to be the Marriott, probably, or the Westin, but like, there’s the Omni and -”

Aziraphale held up a hand, and resisted saying that yes, the Omni was very nice, pity they wouldn’t actually be using the room. “We’re looking for something a little more … economical. But clean,” he added.

“Oh, okay.” She thought about it. “Well, steer clear of Red Roofs and Motel 6’s, then. I found blood in the bathroom of a Red Roof one time, and like, they totally acted like I should be cool with it. Super weird.” She shrugged. “Microtels are usually pretty clean and super cheap. Uh, I dunno, the chain places. Hiltons or Doubletrees or whatever.”

“Microtel,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully. “Cheap and clean, you said?” He glanced over to Crowley, and found that he and Mary had left to discuss Bella’s engine in more detail. 

“Yeah, over by the airport.” Aziraphale started walking leisurely back towards the Mustang and his demon, Leanne falling into step beside him. “You going to be in Austin the whole time?”

“Hm? Oh, no.” He shook his head. “No, we rented the vehicle for easier travel - we’ll be moving around for a few weeks, seeing the sights, you know.” He nodded his head toward Crowley. “He loves a good, ah, road trip.” He raised his eyebrows as Mary and Crowley started crouching down in front of the car, obviously considering sliding underneath it to get a better look, right there in the International House of Pancakes parking lot. Mary even had her phone out to use the flashlight, but Aziraphale pointedly cleared his throat. Crowley paused.

“What, angel?”

“Aw,” Leanne whispered, exchanging an affectionate glance with Mary. 

“Hotel, remember?” he said, jerking his head back toward the car, hands folded behind his back. “We were looking -”

“Yeah, I remember. We’ve got a minute.”

“ _ I’m quite tired _ .”

Crowley was looking at him flatly. Had there not been unfamiliar humans around, he probably would have lowered his sunglasses to  _ really _ fix Aziraphale with a look. “You’re tired?”

“Yes,” he replied primly. “Miss Leanne was kind enough to recommend some reasonably-priced hotels that will be clean. By the airport.” He raised his eyebrows significantly. Crowley continued staring. “With excellent freeway access.”

The demon groaned. “Yeah, alright. Alright, I get the point.” He held up a hand. “Five minutes?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Very well. Five minutes.” Crowley nodded, enthusiastically, and then he and Mary slid under the Mustang, Mary talking excitedly as the flashlight beam flickered from one mechanical piece to another. Aziraphale sighed. “At least he’s having fun.”

Leanne laughed. “Hey, mind if I ask about your coat?” When Aziraphale looked confused, she went on, “I do some costume design on the side for a little theater company, and that’s a  _ really _ neat coat. Like, looks like it could have been straight out of the nineteenth century.”

“I suppose it does, yes,” Aziraphale laughed. “I have had it for quite a while.” He shrugged, grinning, and parroted Crowley’s earlier assertion. “I’ve looked after it.”

“So what’s it made of? Was it custom or - ?”

In reality, it was probably more than five minutes, but Aziraphale was more than happy to discuss his coat with a young woman who appreciated good tailoring. Eventually, when Crowley and Mary emerged from under the car, brushing themselves off, it was  _ Crowley _ who reminded Aziraphale that they really ought to be going, but only after he and Mary had exchanged numbers**. Leanne had been highly appalled at Aziraphale’s statement that he didn’t actually have a cell phone, but he assured her she was welcome to text Crowley any time she might have questions about period clothing, and Crowley only grumbled about it a little. 

[**  _ When Mary had expressed concern that texting or calls wouldn’t work with an international number, Crowley assured her that his cell carrier was  _ very _ accessible worldwide, and could pick up messages from anywhere she could think of, and probably a few places beyond that. _ ]

“Hey, enjoy America though, alright?” Leanne added, as the two pairs started to draw apart, backing away toward their respective vehicles. “You guys ever have any questions or whatever, you can hit this girl up!”

Mary looked at her disapprovingly across the hood of their car as she opened the driver’s door. “What, you’re a tour guide now?”

“No, but like, they’re in a strange country, I’m just being nice.” Leanne stuck her tongue out at Mary. “I’m allowed to be nice if I want to.”

Mary snorted. “Yeah, I guess.” They smiled fondly at one another, and then, as one, turned and waved at Aziraphale and Crowley. “Anyway, bye guys! Nice to meet you. Thanks for the race!”

Once back in the 4-Runner, with the roar of the Mustang fading behind them, Aziraphale settled in, pulled his seatbelt on, and smiled happily. “What nice young ladies. Miss Leanne was quite helpful with local hot-spots, too.”

“Yeah.” The key turned in the ignition without Crowley’s input, as the car grumbled to life. Hesitantly, the radio flickered on, the volume so low as to be almost inaudible, and Aziraphale clicked it off. “Good catch on that hotel tip, by the way.”

“You know, if we find Adam,” Aziraphale said, as Crowley steered back onto the freeway, following signs to the airport, “and there’s enough time, she did tell me a nice place to get a drink, if you’d like.” Crowley hummed in noncommittal acknowledgement. “Rain on 4th, she said. She was very complimentary - what are you laughing about?”

“Oh, angel.” Crowley shook his head, and tossed his sunglasses into Aziraphale’s lap. “Never change.”

“You know the place? I thought you said you haven’t been to America -”

“I have Twitter. And the internet. You read things.” He glanced sidelong at the angel. “Bit like your club you went to at the end of the nineteenth century.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “A gentlemens’ club? Oh, it’s been years since I’ve been to one.”

Crowley was looking at him. “Do you -” He trailed off and looked back to the road, fingers drumming pensively on the steering wheel.

“Do I what, dear?”

“Never mind.” He jerked the wheel to the right and swerved from the left lane and onto the exit ramp, while the horn of a car he’d cut off blared behind them. “You do  _ know _ what a gentlemens’ club is, right?”

Aziraphale chuckled. “Of course I do, dear. I rather liked spending time with those lovely men - we all really did have similar tastes.”

“Ungh?” Crowley said, hastily looking out the window and into the first parking lot they came across - it was for a Jiffy Lube, which was most definitely not where Adam was staying. 

“Of course,” Aziraphale went on, “they also used it as a cover to engage in their sadly-taboo love affairs. I didn’t partake in that, but the dancing was nice all the same.” He reached across the console, which was so broad that it made what would normally be a comfortable gesture physically impractical and somewhat awkward, and rested his hand on Crowley’s leg. Crowley made one of his little noises, still looking out of the window, and Aziraphale smiled. “I think you would have liked it, if you hadn’t decided to sleep through that portion of history. I am rather sorry about that.”

“Ngh, I know, angel.” Suddenly, the car lurched, as Crowley slammed on the brakes. “Hang on.” He squinted. “What’s it say on the side of that red truck?”

“Dear, you stopped in the middle of an intersection.” When Crowley glared at him and failed to move, in spite of Aziraphale’s pursed lips and the honking of various cars cautiously steering around them, he sighed. “Get closer, I can’t read the front from here.”

“Right, fine.” Crowley pulled forward, drove across the sidewalk, and pulled up alongside the truck. “S’that it? Says it’s it, right?”

“It says ‘ _ Big Sky Severe Storm Spotters _ ’ just there.” Aziraphale indicated the front of the truck, where a small decal had been placed. “Is that them?” He looked up to the hotel, while Crowley nodded. “Oh, Microtel.” He smiled. “She does work in mysterious ways.”

“Huh?” Crowley slung his arm across Aziraphale’s shoulders, the better to look behind them as he reversed back over the sidewalk. “Who?”

Aziraphale considered it. “Leanne,” he settled on. “This establishment was her first suggestion when I asked for a hotel recommendation.” Crowley snorted. “I know, quite the coincidence, wasn’t it?” He frowned, as Crowley pulled back onto the freeway. “Why are we leaving?”

“Gotta get our stuff, don’t we? Don’t!” He reached over and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand as the angel lifted it to snap his fingers. “No magic, if we can help it. And we’ve got time to grab our stuff before we stake them out.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale nodded, and didn’t say anything when Crowley relaxed and let his arm fall to the console, his fingers still wrapped around Aziraphale’s. “That does make sense.” He settled back into his seat, more comfortable, breathing a small sigh of relief when he saw that Crowley was barely going over 90. 

It was the work of an hour to pick up their bags, load back into the car, and return to the Microtel where the truck was still parked. Crowley pulled into a parking lot across the street, with a good view of the hotel entrance as well as the truck, killed the lights, and hissed something to the 4Runner. The engine, to the car’s great surprise, idled more quietly. Crowley nodded, approving, pulled his phone out, and tilted the seat back, his heels propped up on the steering wheel. 

“So now we wait?”

“Now we wait,” Crowley agreed, scrolling through something. He paused, squinting at the phone, and zoomed in on something. “Oh, hey, wait a second before you start in on whatever book you’ve got.” Aziraphale stopped moving, his hand halfway to his briefcase. “Got an email from Lucky.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale stopped, and held out his hand. Crowley dropped the phone into it. “Here, I’ll read it. Oh, bother.” He puzzled over the phone for a minute, taking a moment to zoom back out and then a further minute to actually open the email. Crowley remained silent, eyes closed but a small smirk on his lips. “Don’t look so smug, Crowley, it’s unbecoming.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Very well, here it is. It reads:

“‘ _ Hi, Nanny, _

_ ‘Wow, sounds like you and Brother Francis have had a nice spring! Glad to hear you had an okay time at the flower show, even if you didn’t win anything. Hah, I’m sure Francis reminded you winning isn’t everything but whatever, it is kind of great to win sometimes -’ _ ”

Crowley sighed fondly. “He’s always been so competitive.”

“‘ _ \- but having fun is cool too, I guess. Anyway, I graduated from high school! I attached a few pictures of my graduation - the cool cat next to me in most of the pictures that isn’t my mom or dad is my friend Hal, I think I’ve told you about them before. Wish you could have come to meet everybody, but I get that traveling trans-Atlantic is rough, especially if you don’t like flying. _

_ ‘Are you guys doing anything this summer? I’m super excited - I told you I’m starting college for climatology in the fall, but I didn’t know until a week or two ago that before I do that, I get to go on a road trip this summer! Sort of road trip. Like, weather-related road trip. I’ll be’ _ ….” Aziraphale trailed off, blinking at the text on the screen, before he swallowed, his mouth suddenly very dry, and continued, “ _ ‘ I’ll be storm chasing across the midwest this summer. I’m really excited to see some severe weather close-up, and I’ll be working with a couple of researchers so hopefully I’ll learn a lot, too.’ _ ”

Aziraphale looked to Crowley, who was staring at him, glasses slid down to the tip of his nose. “You’re kidding,” Crowley said, eyes wide. Aziraphale shook his head, and bent back over the phone, picking up the tempo as he read. 

“‘ _ Although I’m sure you’re probably super excited about me chasing the hellish fury of a vengeful God, just in case Brother Francis is worried please let him know that it really is very safe, and the researchers I’ll be working with often take meteorology and climatology students on storm tours, to teach them - me, I guess! - about severe weather patterns, how to spot developing dangerous weather, and other stuff like that. I mean, I know you’re probably all about widespread destruction or whatever, but sorry to disappoint you since I guess I’m hoping to learn how to prevent casualties and warn people to get to safety! Brother Francis is super proud, I’m sure! _

_ ‘Anyway, I’ll email or text you from the road if you want. I can even send videos and pictures! I’m sure you’ll get stuff on snapchat too. Plus, the researchers - Rachael and Noel - update their Facebook page with events from the road during chasing season too, if you want to see their videos and stuff, which’ll probably be way better than anything I take on my phone. You might even see me in a cameo haha! I’ll be internet famous. Discovery Channel, here I come! Their company is called ‘Big Sky Severe Storm Spotters’, they’re the only one on Facebook I think. _

_ ‘So that’s the update! Hear from you soon! _

_ ‘Infernally missing you guys or whatever, _

_ Lucky _ ’”

Silence permeated the interior of the car for a few minutes. The engine, embarrassed, idled more quietly still. Wordlessly, Aziraphale handed Crowley’s phone back to him, the two of them staring fixedly out of the windshield for a long, long time. Across the street, the red truck sat in the parking lot lights, and somewhere in the hotel,  _ two _ anti-Christs*** were sleeping soundly.

[***  _ Sort of _ .]

Crowley was the first to break the silence, reaching his hand up slowly to cover his eyes, and pulling his knees in closer to his chest. He sighed. “Well, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really did find blood in the bathroom of the Red Roof Inn one time. Due to social anxiety, I did nothing about it. It's fine.


	5. Sordid Meets and Breakfast Joints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot thickens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit late on this one, sorry again, but anyway happy 4/20. Enjoy. :)

In the cool and slightly-lemon-scented room of the Microtel, Adam Young and Warlock “Lucky” Dowling slept. It had been years since Adam had had one of his … dreams. The dreams where nuclear power sources disappeared and left only lemon drops in their wake, the dreams where long-dead islands rose from the sea, the dreams that left huge swaths of South America so densely forested that people were lost in the jungle just outside their previously-metropolitan front door. It had been over seven years, in fact, since he had had such a dream.

He didn’t have one that night, either. That night, he dreamt about the character from the book he was reading on the airplane, and in his dream that character had to solve a puzzle or he would never be able to use green markers again. It was a somewhat distressing dream, and Adam turned over in his sleep with a frown. Nothing happened in real life.

There were several beings in the universe who would have been slightly disappointed to know that, although most other beings would have been greatly relieved. While Adam slept, two of the disappointed beings were standing in the parking lot of an International House of Pancakes. One was dressed all in white and was practically glowing in the flickering blue fluorescence, although nobody seemed to notice her. The other, in spite of standing in the same light as the first, gave off a distinct impression of lurking, and was smoking a cigarette.

“The boy is unprotected here,” said the first, without courtesy of a greeting. The second did not seem to mind this, and grunted noncommittally before blowing a stream of smoke into her face. 

“Got those two idiots with him, dun’t he? ‘Course, he dun’t know they’re there.”

She looked at him coolly. “As I said: unprotected.” She scowled when the second figure offered her a cigarette*. “Disgusting.”

[* _ It was, to be fair to him, the least-crumpled cigarette in the packet. It also had the fewest grease stains on it. He might be on the opposite side, but he could still be cordial when the occasion called for it. _ ]

“Suit yourself.” The taller, filthier figure looked thoughtful. “You want me to kill him, then?”

“Don’t be crass - that would be too obvious,” she scolded him. “Who knows what wrath you might incite with a stroke like that.”

The taller of the two rolled his eyes, although it was hard to tell given both eyes were completely black as pitch. “Not from your people. Prob’ly not from mine, either.”

“I thought Beelzebub and Dagon were -”

“We’re just waiting for the next go round,” he snapped, more harshly than necessary but not more than expected. The other looked unconcerned. “Once the old kid’s out of the way we can start over again.” 

She sighed. “Of course. What is your plan for … the removal?”

“Kill him.”

She snarled. “ _ How _ , you idiot?” 

The taller one took a contemplative drag off his cigarette. “I love a good storm.” He smiled, in a not very nice way at all. A maggot crawled from his ear into his mouth. “Think he’ll probably come across a few.”

“And storm chasers do die on occasion,” she said, nodding with approval. “Make it look like an accident.”

“Obviously,” he mocked, affecting her accent for a beat and scowling down at her. “Your boss know about this?”

She snorted. “Gabriel isn’t my boss. And no, he doesn’t know. He’s been … preoccupied.” She paused, and then risked a sidelong glance at the taller one, mischief in every line on her face. “And certainly Beelzebub sanctioned this, what with getting ready for the next go around.” He grunted. “Only, I hear there’s a bit of a dust-up down there, and Lucifer has gone missing -”

He viciously chucked the butt of the cigarette to the pavement, and ground it under his heel. It combusted in rather more flame than one might have expected. “He’s around. All official-like. We done here, Wank-wings? ‘Cause you can piss off.”

“Hm.” Wank-wings - more typically known as Michael - buttoned up her white coat, and, in the light of the parking lot, two glorious brown and speckled wings - falcon’s wings - spread from her shoulders. “As always it was a disgusting displeasure, Hastur.” He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, her wings snapped, and a nimbus of blue light shot upwards, into the sky and out of sight. Hastur watched her go, scowling all the while. When he was well sure she was gone, he spat on the ground. The asphalt began to dissolve.

“Bloody archangels,” he grumbled, before he stepped out from under the parking lot light, and disappeared into the darkness.

-

Fifty feet away, through the window of the Waffle House across the street, four figures were seated at a booth, three of them watching through the window as Hastur disappeared. One figure, who looked to be a slender, middle-aged man with sharp features and a large-brimmed brown hat, did not look up from his book. The tallest of the figures - a dark-skinned woman with long dreadlocks, pulled back neatly out of her face, sighed, staring with a considerable amount of exasperation into her cup of black coffee. “They think they’re so clever, don’t they?”

“Tragic,” the second figure agreed, from their seat next to the reader. They were thin, brown-skinned, and dressed in boldly-colored clothing that looked more suited to a night at a club with $50 drinks than a Waffle House. They too were cradling a mug, tea with a strong herbal scent to it, and also a hint of vanilla, and had a half-eaten plate of pancakes in front of them. “How closely do you think we should watch them?”

“I hardly think we need to,” the third figure replied. She was short, presented herself as boyish but still feminine, and with their long, red hair braided and flipped over her shoulder, she looked like a college freshman that had gotten lost just before being adopted by her new parents, the trendy one and the college professor. As she spoke, she slurped another cup of coffee down and reached across the table for the abandoned pancakes, her hoodie strings dragging through the leftover whipped cream from her own waffle. “How’s the tea?”

“Delightful, thank you for bringing it,” the nightclub one answered. “What makes you think we shouldn’t at least … nudge the situation along to a more favorable outcome?”

“Aziraphale and Crowley are here, aren’t they?” said the third, scooping a forkful of pancakes into their mouth. The college professor looked to her with a small amount of despair. “Back off, you know how often I get planetside to eat these?”

“Just please try to chew with your mouth closed,” the dark-skinned woman sighed. “Please?” She frowned at a fleck of whipped cream on her sleeve. “Oh, honestly, I can’t take you anywhere.” Diagonally across the table, the reader idly swiped a dollop of whipped cream off her plate and deposited it into his coffee, stirring it in and having a long drink.

The trendy one chuckled. “Go on, let ‘em have their fun.” They drummed their fingers on the back of the booth, thoughtful as they looked out of the window and into the night. “While I appreciate your absolutely-misfounded faith in Aziraphale and Crowley, may I please point out that they are complete morons.” They waved a hand, and bracelets clattered. “Of course, Crowley wasn’t always that way -”

“Eh, he kind of was,” the shortest one said. “Even back in the Beginning he -”

“Original sin,” the trendy one sighed, “was brilliant.”

The college professor shrugged. “I’m still not convinced he didn’t do that by accident.” The reader smirked.

“Good thing, too, then, all things considered,” replied the trendy one. “I give him credit where it’s due, but suit yourself.” They paused to take another sip of tea. “I don’t think they’re quite as incompetent as their track record indicates.”

The short one laughed, and the college professor looked amused at that. “Aziraphale gave his flaming sword away within the first week of Earth.”

“Been pretty good at his job aside from that, though, I’ll wager,” the trendy one countered, pointing to her. “He was  _ always _ a good egg.”

The college professor considered it. “True. He is, as you say, an  _ exceptionally _ good egg. Still, with Hastur and Michael -”

“And Crowley doesn’t miss a beat,” the shorter one chipped in. “Not when he’s paying attention, anyway. Which he doesn’t always do.” She gestured with her fork, splattering her other three companions with syrup. The syrup considered soaking into their clothes, really getting good and sticky, but before it got to work it realized who it was dealing with, and re-considered, instead sloughing off onto the tabletop in shame. “But he will if he cares about something.”

The trendy one cocked an eyebrow. “And you believe he cares enough about Adam to not require any additional assistance?”

“Oh, absolutely. S’the whole point, innit?”

“If you’re wrong, there will be no more pancakes. Ever.” The trendy one pointed to the ceiling of the Waffle House. “No breakfast foods in Heaven.”

“Which is a damn shame -” the college professor made a noise of vague disapproval, but looked entertained nonetheless “- but  _ yes _ , even knowing that, I have complete confidence that we will not have to intervene  _ at all _ in this mission.” Under the table, she kicked the reader, who looked up from his book. “What do you think, Raziel?”

The reader smirked and sat back, finger marking his place in the book and arms crossed over his chest, hunched into his brown overcoat. “I don’t know about confidence, but I know that we  _ shouldn’t _ play a part. Yet. Strictly hands-off. For now.” He shrugged.

“No secret insight on what She wants us to do later, little brother?” The redhead asked, sticking one of her hoodie strings into her mouth and sucking the syrup off of it. “Your book of secrets doesn’t have like, a clue or something?”

He paused, confused, and then looked to his book. “Book of - Raphael, this is an absolutely terrible fiction novel. I don’t carry my notebook with me  _ everywhere _ .” He tapped his hat. “Keep most of it up here.”

“Really?” The trendy one looked surprised. “I was going to forgive you for reading through breakfast if that was your notebook.”

“He reads through everything,” the college professor sighed. “So, for now, hands off. What about monitoring?”

“Oh, you should definitely do that.” Raziel nodded eagerly. “Or, rather, I will. As Raphael said, it’s sort of the point of all this.” With a languid wave, he indicated the breakfast table, the gathered party, and himself.

“Is that why you’re dressed like a reporter from 1948?” The trendy one was smirking at him, and prodded him in the ribs slightly. “You know that’s not how humans dress these days. Certainly not reporters.”

Raziel raised his eyebrows, looking his seat-mate up and down. “I’m not taking my fashion advice from you, Verrier.” He sighed, and sat back again, opening his book back up to where he’d stopped. “I’ll find something more appropriate later, then. But yes, for now, we only watch.” He turned the page. “It’ll change.”

The college professor narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”

“Ineffable. I’ll let you know if and when we receive additional instructions.”

“You’re a very frustrating little brother,” Raphael grumbled into her refilled coffee mug.

Verrier grinned and nudged his shoulder, eliciting a small smile, but nothing more. “Little brothers usually are.” They finished their coffee, and stood, stretching. “Right. Thanks for breakfast as usual, guys. Tip’s on me?”

“Don’t know why you always say that, you never leave one,” said the college professor, studying the waitress that had been seeing to their table, almost as if she were weighing the young woman’s life right then and there**. She nodded when she found whatever she was looking for, and set a stack of bills on the table. $100s. Verrier sighed.

[** _ Which she was _ .]

“Really, Sachiel?”

“Really.” Sachiel nudged Raphael in the ribs, prompting the other archangel to slide out of the booth and stand, stepping aside to allow Sachiel and Verrier to embrace and exchange kisses on the cheek. “Always good to see you again.”

“It’s been too long,” Verrier agreed, not letting go of Sachiel’s shoulders. “Since Adam was born -”

Sachiel shook her head. “Hopefully, if Team Oblivious doesn’t manage to somehow make a mess of this, we can do it rather more often.” She sighed. “The lines between us blur a little more every day, it seems.”

“Part of the Plan, do you think?” The three standing figures turned, as one, to look to Raziel. He didn’t look away from his book, but he did shrug.

“I don’t know why you think I know the whole Plan, I just know the parts of it that I get told to write down.”

“More than anybody else knows,” Verrier pointed out. Raziel took a sip of his coffee and made a noise that was neither in agreement or disagreement, and Verrier rolled their eyes, exasperated, before turning to Raphael. “And so glad you could come, Ralph.”

“I’m a slut for pancakes, what can I say?” Sachiel covered her face with her hands, and Verrier laughed, honestly laughed. “No, seriously, I … Well, you know.” She shrugged. “I just can’t get on board with killing kids. Among other things.” She glanced around at the Waffle House, smiling more fondly than anybody has potentially ever smiled at the interior of a Waffle House before. “Never was a fan of the apocalypse.” She fluttered her hands a little. “I was kind of one-and-done on the whole celestial cataclysm thing.”

Verrier patted her shoulder. “Don’t blame you.” They gathered their scarf up, and slung it over their shoulder. “Well, I’m off. Should be back before anybody notices I’m gone.” They laughed again, but there was something brittle to it. “Although I don’t know  _ who _ would notice anymore.”

“Stay in touch,” Sachiel encouraged, gently, and Verrier smiled, nodded, and brushed past on their way to the door. “Right.” Sachiel clapped her hands when the doors had swung closed, and turned her eyes to Raphael. “We should get back as well. I certainly have work to do, I can’t imagine you don’t.”

Raphael frowned. “Well …”

“Well?”

She hemmed a little more. “Hey, uh, Raziel, you have a car right now, right?” In response, the other angel pointed to the parking lot, where a lone brown Ford Escape sat. “Can I get a ride?”

“Sure,” Raziel answered, while Sachiel asked, more prudently, “Where?”

Raphael looked repentant. “Just … Okay, can I do just  _ one _ children's’ hospital? Just one?”

Sachiel looked like she wanted to be stern. Really, she did. But it didn’t last, and Raphael knew the battle was won even before she’d finished speaking. “This is why you never get to come down here,” Sachiel grumbled at last. “Okay you can do one -  _ one _ \- but listen, you have to stay within plausible deniability and you come home  _ right after _ .”

Raphael nodded eagerly. “Definitely.”

“I’ll send someone after you,” Sachiel warned.

“I said I’d come back as soon as I’m done.”

“It’ll be Sandalphon.”

“Oh, please, no.” Raphael grimaced. “Fine. One hospital, keep it reasonable, and then straight back to Heaven. Got it. No arguments from me. Don’t send Sandalphon.”

“Keep an eye on her, too, until you’re sure she’s on her way home,” Sachiel said to Raziel, who responded with a thumbs-up. She turned back to Raphael then, kissed her on the forehead, and winked, before she clicked her fingers and vanished from the Waffle House altogether.

Raziel didn’t look up from his book when the seat next to him bounced and sank, creaking its protests, while Raphael slid in next to him. “Come on, little brother, I need a ride.”

He sipped his drink. “Not done with the coffee, yet.”

“I’m going to get in trouble if I’m not back in a reasonable span of time. You heard that, right?”

“I hear everything said around me.” He looked up from the text then and smiled at her - smug and teasing. Then, with a heavy sigh but the same smile, he dog-eared the page of his book and shut it. “Fine, I’ll leave the coffee. Let’s move.” They fell into step on the way to the car, walking in companionable silence until Raziel opened the passenger side door for the archangel. 

“Hey, you’re gonna be driving a lot,” Raphael pointed out, clicking her seatbelt into place. Raziel nodded, shut the door, and then strolled around to the drivers’ side, sliding into the seat and turning the key in the ignition in one smooth motion. “How’re you going to keep up with your reading?”

He turned to her and grinned, genuinely excited, before looking back to the empty parking lot and pulling out, toward the freeway. “You ever hear of books on tape?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read my other fic, ['God should have made a universe full of nebulas'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20035843) I would kind of point you in that direction. It's not necessary at all to this chapter, but it does explain my headcanon'd relationship between Crowley and Raphael a little more in case you're interested.


	6. Tornado Chasers run on Dunkin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like meteorology because i studied it a lot for this chapter.
> 
> Adam and Lucky spend a day tornado chasing, see no tornadoes, but learn a little bit about each other.

Four-thirty in the morning, and it was still dark. Generally, Adam wasn’t a fan of getting up before the sun, but generally, Adam was not hunting tornadoes. He rolled out of bed the minute the alarm went off, silenced it, and moved to turn on the light. Lucky beat him to it.

“You ready?” the other boy asked, dark eyes bright and eager. “You ready to go?”

“Absolutely.”

They threw on clothes - whatever they could find - and stuffed the few things they’d actually unpacked back into their bags. Adam paused only to send a text to his friends - ‘Day 1, here we go!’ - before he and the other student walked quickly into the parking lot, their excitement poorly-disguised. They arrived at the truck and stopped. It was dark. Rachael and Noel were absent. Lucky frowned, and looked at his phone.

“Oh. We’re early.” He dropped his bag to the ground, and sat on the asphalt next to it. “Oh well, better early than late.”

“Sure,” Adam agreed, leaning back against the truck and wondering if maybe the extra 15 minutes of sleep might have been worth it. He sighed and looked around. In Tadfield, the streets would have been empty at this hour. But in Austin, by the airport, cars came and went. At a lower volume, certainly, than they might in a few hours, but still, the road was not deserted by any stretch of the imagination. He wondered, distantly, where all those people might be going. 

“Hey, Adam.” Lucky held up his phone. “You wanna do a snap?”

“Oh, selfie? Yeah, sure.” He crouched down next to the other boy, Lucky beaming through his beard and Adam holding up a peace sign while his blonde hair spilled over his face and shoulders. It probably would have been a good picture, had it not been so dark that the only discernible thing was two dark shadows crouched in front of a slightly reddish shadow that may have, with better lighting, looked like a truck. Undeterred, Lucky nodded approvingly and captioned it ‘day 1 fuckers!’ before sending it off, presumably to a group of friends. 

“I should probably take another one for my parents and stuff, too.” This was done as a selfie only, Adam standing back up to look to the east instead, watching the sky turn purple with dawn. Although Adam didn’t like to look over anybody’s shoulder, he did note that the caption on the second photo was a tamer ‘Bright and early for storm chasing day 1!’. He smiled. 

“Your parents are cool with this, huh?”

“Eh.” Lucky shrugged. “My dad is. He’s like a super stereotypical masculine dude - his only concern was that I didn’t plan on taking a gun with me.” He rolled his eyes, while Adam tried not to look too shocked. Well, that was America for you. “My mom was kind of worried, but like, I dunno. When I told her I’d be with professionals she seemed fine, and that was kind of all she had to say about it.” He looked up, over his shoulder, to Adam. “Yours?”

Adam shrugged a shoulder. “They felt like it was a good opportunity, they just felt it was maybe more dangerous than needed but … eh.” He laughed. “I was more worried about my godfathers trying to stop me, but they just let me go.” He frowned. “Which is kind of weird, actually, ‘cause they seemed really worried at first, but I did tell them it really isn’t that dangerous, so I guess they believed me.”

Lucky was watching him with a puzzled expression. “I don’t have any godparents. Well, I mean, not that I’ve stayed in touch with. I think my parents picked some of their friends or something. But you know yours?” He thought about it. “Was your family really religious or something?” And then he winced. “Yikes, actually, that’s really personal. Sorry, don’t feel obligated.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I mean … kind of.” He snorted. “It’s weird, but I guess we’re kind of religious in a way. They taught me a lot about religion, anyway, but like, I dunno.” He shook his head. “I was heading for trouble when I was younger, and that’s sort of when they started hanging around more, I think at first to help me? But now they’re just kind of cool weird uncles.”

Lucky nodded appreciatively. “Nice.” He picked up a stone from the parking lot and chucked it, idle and bored. “I learned most of my religion from, uh, well, we had a nanny and a gardener until I was like, eight, and it was mostly them.” He laughed. “So weird, honestly - the gardner was like, a monk, I swear to God, and my nanny was actually like, a literal  _ Satanist _ , like pentagrams and the whole thing, but they ended up getting married after they retired together.” Adam frowned. That was … odd. “Nanny used to like, tell me to destroy all lesser humans and stuff, and then she’d hand me off to the gardner for a few hours and he’d be like all into love of all living things or whatever.” Oh, she. Adam relaxed. A little.

Very strange.

“Up and at ‘em, eh, boys?” Noel’s voice rang across the parking lot, loud and clear even over the steadily-increasing airport traffic. “Excited for the first day?”

Adam nodded and Lucky said, “Yeah!” Rachael, tagging behind, laden with camera bags and an oversize travel mug, offered up a weak and drowsy smile. “Lots of driving on the agenda today, guys. Hopefully will get us into position to see some stuff this afternoon. But first -” she wagged the mug in the air, “we need to find a Dunkin.”

Lucky made a face. “You’re a Dunkin devotee?”

“What’s your brand?” She was packing her things into the bed of the truck, and Adam and Lucky followed suit. “Please don’t say Starbucks.”

“... Well.”

She sighed and laid her hand on his shoulder. “So I have to teach you more than just storm chasing this trip, I guess. It will be my cross to bear.” The truck started up, and Rachael brandished her mug like a sleepy knight charging into battle. “To Dunkin.” She trod around to the front passenger seat, and Lucky laughed, shutting the bed cover and heading to his seat. 

Adam waited until they were in the truck and on the road before he asked, “What’s Dunkin?” He thought it over, trying to remember where he’d seen the name before. Online, certainly, but in relation to … what?

“Oh.” Rachael was watching him in the rearview mirror. “Oh, Adam. Oh, you sweet, summer child.” She turned around, her mug cradled in both hands like some kind of precious gem. “Do you drink coffee? Or tea?”

“Both.” He considered it. “Coffee’s nice in the morning.”

“Dunkin Donuts has the best coffee in the world. Hands down, best.”

“Sometimes they burn it,” Noel said, already flinching away from the playful slap she aimed at his shoulder. “I said sometimes! Not every time!”

“Never. They never do.” She looked to her phone, where a GPS was chirping out directions to the nearest Dunkin. “I will convince you boys by the end of this trip that Dunkin coffee is superior to any other coffee, and not to be unappreciated.” She sighed. “It is better than Starbucks, mark my words.” Lucky hummed, uncertain. “What’s your preferred brand, Adam?”

He thought about it. “Uh, well. I dunno. Costa is what we have in town, and that’s pretty good, but I don’t think there’s any of them over here. Starbucks is okay, I guess, in a pinch, but my godfather makes the best coffee.” He shrugged. “He’s super into it.”

Rachael nodded. “Oh, well, obviously home-brew rigs are going to beat out chain places every time.”

“She does make an amazing cup of coffee,” Noel agreed, somewhat grudgingly, although his smirk gave him away.

“But no, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Costa.” Rachael looked thoughtful. “I’ll have to try it some day. I’ve always wanted to visit the UK, so I’ll put it on my list of things to do for that trip!”

Adam laughed. “There are definitely better things to do in England than go to Costa. If you’re serious about going, I can give you a list of stuff if you’d like.”

Noel turned into a parking lot, and Rachael yawned. “Ah, sorry. Yes, I’m definitely going to take you up on that. But first, coffee. You alright taking the first leg driving, Noel?”

“‘Course.” He hopped out and waited for the rest of the party to join. “The donuts are also fairly good here, so if you guys want breakfast this will probably be our stop. They have sandwiches an’ all that, too.”

“I do like their hashbrowns,” Lucky added, half a step behind Adam, hands in his pockets. “You have to have a donut though, Adam. Just to try one. It’s like … I mean, America runs on Dunkin.” He laughed. “Or at least that’s what their commercials say.”

Ultimately, Adam selected a donut for breakfast, as well as a cup of coffee. He debated getting the hash browns as well, but on reflection it seemed likely that this would not be his only opportunity to eat at Dunkin, and he decided to save it for another day. Rachael paid for him - “The first hit is free,” she said solemnly - and they took their leave.

The coffee was pretty good, Adam thought, sipping at it on the way back to the truck. Maybe a little too sweet. But good. Wouldn’t be the worst thing to drink for the next few weeks, anyway. He assured Rachael he thought it was delicious, and they loaded back into the truck.

Rachael spent the first portion of the drive north looking at her computer, studying the weather maps, and drinking her coffee. She and Noel talked in low voices about where to go - maybe a bit more east? Or stay westward? - and the truck rolled on. Adam, a stranger in America, watched the desert of Texas go by, pink and gold in the dawn and then bright and brown in the harsh light of day. Lucky, in spite of drinking his coffee faster than anybody probably should, was asleep within the first hour, leaned against the window with a string of drool running from the corner of his mouth. Adam considered taking a photo of him on Lucky’s own phone - it was laid on the seat between them, idle - but decided against it, instead pulling out a book about supercell formation and other weather patterns, and starting to read.

Rachael and Noel switched drivers after a few hours, stirring Lucky from his nap. With the students more awake, and no driving duties at hand, Noel took the opportunity to talk Lucky and Adam through the weather tracking software on the laptop, and discussed what they were looking for. “You want to see a big, cool system meeting with some warm air where there’s a lot of moisture,” he explained. “So here’s the barometric pressures as they stand now, and the current radar, plus the CAPE numbers - that indicates the stability of the system and the likelihood of severe weather forming. Either of you have an idea of where we should go for ideal storm tracking?” Adam and Lucky, each with their own notebooks, did their level best to calculate the possible and likely movements of the systems. Adam considered his work and, eventually, penciled in a careful ‘x’ over a part of the map where it appeared two states met on the north side of the Oklahoma panhandle. Lucky had already finished his own calculations, and they passed their notebooks forward. 

“Alright, let’s see here.” Noel turned around, one notebook in each hand and laptop open in front of him, comparing each of their calculations to his own model. Adam shifted nervously. He was pretty sure with the jet stream so far south, they wouldn’t need to go as north as Lucky had calculated, but then again he hadn’t been confident about the low-pressure area … “Both good maps,” Noel concluded at last. “But I think today we’re going to end up closer to Adam’s.” He turned back to them, smiling, and passed the notebooks back. “Partially because we won’t be able to get that far into Kansas without losing daylight, sorry Lucky, but I don’t know … we’ll have to see. Time will tell.”

“Part of storm chasing,” Rachael added in, “is guesswork. Doesn’t matter how good your models are, doesn’t matter how correct your math’s been, the weather always seems to end up surprising us. It’s part of what makes it fun! And scary, sometimes.”

“Oh, which reminds me: safety briefing.” Noel turned around, suddenly serious as the grave. Adam nodded attentively, shutting his notebook and folding his hands on top of it. “We’ll go through some of Rachael’s lightning equipment afterwards, because eventually you two are going to be doing a lot of work with that, but we need to talk safety.” He sighed and rubbed his neck. “It’s not all fun and photos out here. Let’s talk the anatomy of a storm. Lucky, you first, go over what you know about inflow and outflow, and why that’s important.”

The safety “briefing” actually lasted an entire 3 hours which, honestly, Adam appreciated. They discussed the anatomy of a supercell, the places where you were more likely to get caught off-guard by a rain-wrapped tornado, the places where lighting is more likely to be active, where and how hail forms, and how to best stay safe while studying storms. Noel showed and taught them about the ‘bear’s cage’, and made it very clear that for the most part they would be avoiding that portion of the storm, as neither Noel nor Rachael had a death wish. At the conclusion of his briefing, they stopped for lunch - fast food, which Adam viewed as a particular treat, not having much selection in Tadfield - and switched drivers again.

As they entered the Great Plains region, Adam was taken aback by just how  _ flat _ everything was. Miles and miles stretched out on either side, level and grassy in the places where it wasn’t level and covered with farmland. Cows - so many cows - grazed and stood and slept and stared at the highway, sometimes, and although Rachael’s instruction on lightning and atmospheric electrical activity was truly interesting, Adam found his mind wandering. 

“Adam?” he was startled from his reverie and study of the plains of the Texas panhandle by Lucky. He turned to find both the other student and Rachael smiling at him. 

He blushed. “Oh, sorry.”

Rachael shrugged. “Don’t worry. It’s a lot of information. We’re probably a few hours out yet, too - are you tired? We can take a break and you can have a nap. We have you both at our mercy for the next little while anyway, right?”

Adam laughed. “Yeah. I might nap. Uh, if that’s okay, I mean.” Rachael waved a hand, the universal gesture of ‘go ahead’. Lucky nodded too, slouching back against the seat and stuffing a bundled-up sweatshirt between his head and the window. He was asleep in minutes, eyelids fluttering as he dreamed. Adam leaned up against the window, too, wishing he’d had the foresight to pull a sweatshirt or something out of his own luggage as a makeshift pillow. Still, even without, he found a comfortable position between the headrest and the side of the cab, and drifted off to the sound of the road beneath the truck. 

He wasn’t sure how long he slept, but he didn’t dream, and when he woke up, it was because Lucky was nudging his shoulder. “Hey, dude. We’re getting there: look!”

“Whazz?” Adam blinked, bleary, and then remembered what he was doing. He focused his eyes, rubbed a bit of sleep from them, and looked to Rachael, or at least her shoulder. Her laptop was open on her lap, Baron running. Although he could only see her face in profile, she didn’t look happy.

“Check out the clouds,” Lucky said, pointing across the back seat and out of Adam’s window. “Look. Cumulonimbus.”

Noel glanced out of the window at the clouds. “Yep, for sure. Capped, though. How’s the radar looking, Rachael?”

“Not great,” she replied, glumly. “Honestly it looks like … I hate to say it, but it looks like it might fall apart.” She ran a hand over her hair, pulling a few dark strands loose from her already-messy ponytail. “It just isn’t hanging together like we want it to be.” She turned around and set the laptop on the center console, the better to show the students in the back seat what she was looking at. “You see this line of storms here? Ideally, I would have liked to see them consolidate more, but they’re spreading out into a squall line.” She pointed to one of the still-consolidated blobs on the radar. “That’s going to be a low-precipitation system, but it might be a good one to see for your first day.” She scowled as she zoomed out. “Look at that - the storms to the east look much better.”

Noel shook his head. “That’s the business, unfortunately. And things might change - you get hooks in squall lines, sometimes.”

“Well, I didn’t want to start these guys out on a bust day.” She studied the radar again after pulling the laptop back onto her knees. “I guess this looks somewhat favorable here, up by Sturgis. No hook, though.” She sighed. “Still might get some lightning and hail, though. You guys want to practice a little with the lightning equipment?”

Adam nodded eagerly. He was disappointed, a little, that the storm was falling apart, but still, a big storm and some lightning would be exciting. Maybe hail. The biggest hail he’d ever seen wasn’t even pea-sized, but he’d seen videos and photos of much larger and he figured it might be cool to see that in person. Providing the windscreen didn’t shatter. He’d seen videos of that, too. He also, he considered, might not want to be out  _ in _ the hail, setting up monitoring equipment, especially if it was very large.

“Alright. Onwards to Sturgis, then.”

They arrived in Sturgis in the mid-afternoon, moving from blue skies and fluffy cumulonimbus clouds into a giant wall of white and gray. “Shelf clouds,” Rachael said, tracing across the front of the cloud formation. “Adam - what’s the difference between shelf and wall clouds? They look similar, but they’re not the same thing, yes?”

“Right.” He answered slowly, deliberately, making sure he responded as accurately as possible. “Shelf clouds typically form at the front of a storm line, where wall clouds are usually at the back. The shelf cloud is usually because the uh … The downdraft -” Rachael nodded encouragingly, “- Right, the downdraft at the leading edge of the storm cuts under the warm, moist air and forces it up which makes it have the wall shape.”

“Right! Good start for description of a shelf cloud. So a wall cloud - ?”

“Is … is due to uh, en, uh …” He flapped a hand, as if grasping for the word. “En-something, um …”

“Entrainment.” Rachael nodded. “Yeah, that’s right, good start, keep going.”

“Okay so entrainment is when the warm, moist air gets drawn up and like, starts to push out the colder air. And then the warm air continues to gather moisture and condenses into a cloud. It usually happens really quick, and in supercells wall clouds usually rotate due to the mesocyclone.” He was on firmer footing there - he hadn’t done all that reading on supercells that morning for nothing. “Usually they’re under the rain-free base of the storm, not on the leading edge.”

“Right!” She turned back to the windscreen and gestured to the clouds ahead of them. “So these are shelf clouds. They’re still in the distance a little, but what should we expect as we get closer, Lucky?”

“Gusty winds,” the other student answered quickly. “As the cold downdraft shoots forward over the warm air.”

“Right. And what will the clouds look like?”

That was tougher. “If it’s very strong winds,” he said slowly, after a break for thought, “then uh, like the clouds will be kind of messy at the leading edge, and there might be scud along the ground, right?”

“Yep. In really strong storms you can get straight-line winds, vortices along the ground, and gustnadoes. Which are  _ not _ tornadoes, right?” She grinned as the boys in the back seat each fixed her with looks of varying puzzlement. “Yes? Either of you know the difference between a gustnado and a tornado?” Neither did, and Rachael was more than happy to explain. Adam diligently took a few notes - outflow, not inflow, and straight line winds versus cyclonic activity - and let Lucky read them over his shoulder. 

“I’m not sure I really understand straight-line winds,” Adam said, when she’d finished her explanation. “I’ve read about them, but can you explain more what -”

“Yeah, for sure!” She continued on, going through the details of a straight-line wind, and how that might be more likely in a squall line than a supercell. Noel would chip in on occasion as well, although for the most part he drove deliberately, watching the clouds, taking measures of the surrounding roads and towns, and following the highways to some nebulous destination. Rachael would add a direction to him mid-lecture sometimes, after consulting her computer, and then would return to the rapt students with more information.

“This is a lot of information,” she added at the end of her lecture. “I’m glad you’re taking notes, but I don’t think many people could remember all of this after one day. We’ll go through it a few times over the weeks, alright?”

“Perfect,” Lucky said, a little glassy-eyed. “Adam, do you mind if I copy your notes?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Noel pulled over on the main highway, as if arriving in some predetermined destination that only he knew, and put the truck into park. “Seems as good a place as any to wait for it to roll in, huh?”

“Not a soul around.” Rachael kicked her door open and jumped to the dusty ground outside. “Great place to practice with the lightning instruments. And we can hang out in the car and watch the storm, as long as it’s safe, yeah?”

Adam and Lucky were already hopping out of the car and headed toward the back gate. Under Rachael and Noel’s tutelage, they set up two of Rachael’s field instruments - a high-speed camera station and a small portable weather monitoring station - and fixed them into the ground with spikes. “Not any good if you can’t find your data-gathering instruments,” Rachael laughed. “Learned that one the hard way early on.”

“Before she met me,” Noel added, and she rolled her eyes. “First chase with me and I asked her ‘so you just let the tornadoes take your high-speed cameras every time?’ and she stared at me like I had three eyeballs all of a sudden.”

“I only ever lost one to a direct hit,” she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and then, suddenly, wrapping them around herself more tightly. A cold breeze, no, a cold  _ gust _ blew over them, kicking up the dust and tossing it into their eyes. “Yep, there’s the gust. In the car, guys, unless you want to experience hail first-hand.”

Two minutes later, and Adam found himself wincing in solidarity with the truck as marble-sized hail hammered the roof and the windscreen. “We use special glass,” Noel shouted to them, over the noise. “It still breaks sometimes, but I have a guy that puts it in for us when we need it.” Lightning forked across the sky, and a blink later a crack of thunder split the air. Lucky jumped, right hand clenched on the door handle and left wrapped tight around his phone, forgotten. “You get that?”

“I don’t think it was a clear shot.” Rachael had her window rolled down as far as she could without letting in undue amounts of hailstones, her camera pointed out toward what had thus far been the most active part of the storm. “Working on it.”

“We can sell these shots,” Noel shouted. “Honestly, taking students and stuff is a good steady source of income, but sometimes the photo sales are what makes a season for us.”

“No pressure or anything.” Rachael leaned back as the hail pinged off the side of the truck and into her neck. “I dunno, I think there’s too much hail and rain here.”

“You wanna move? We could run east and see if we could get ahead of it.”

She shook her head in response. “Nah, not today. Let’s wait for the worst to pass and then we’ll grab the instruments. The remote might’ve got something.” She didn’t look away from the storm, but she called, “How you two doing? You’re awfully quiet.”

“This is wicked,” Adam said loudly, over the hail, wide-eyed and watching the storm surge around the truck. It almost looked like snow on the road, the hail was falling so heavy and fast. Lucky, still glancing at the lightning shooting through the sky above, had recovered from the shock of the thunder enough to bring his phone up and start taking video. Adam, prompted by that, pulled his own phone out and started recording. “Marble-sized hail,” he explained to the video. “Just outside of Sturgis, Oklahoma.” He’d have to send it to the group when he got back on wi-fi, he resolved, before he stopped the recording and tucked his phone back into his pocket. Definitely the whole extended family of The Them - the core four and the rest of the Nahpocalypse crew - and his sister. He would decide whether or not his parents should see it later. 

-

When the message dinged onto Crowley’s phone late that night, he and Aziraphale studiously watched Adam’s video of the hail and the storm. “Well, he doesn’t sound afraid,” Aziraphale said. “That’s good.”

“What’s he got to be afraid of?” Crowley reclined his seat and took his phone with him, swapping from the video to some game or another. “Hail wasn’t even that big. We’ve been through bigger storms than that.”

“Not while avoiding miracles,” Aziraphale replied, testily. He had not enjoyed the storm. Crowley hadn’t either, but only because the demon had spent the majority of the time threatening the 4-Runner that if it  _ dared _ allow the windscreen to crack, there would be absolutely horrific repercussions. Aziraphale had had to cut him off when he’d started getting into really descriptive methods of car torture. 

Crowley made a noise of vague disagreement. “There were loads of humans out in it. Weren’t even scared.”

“Because they don’t know better.”

“Or because there wasn’t anything to be worried about.”

Aziraphale relented, slightly. He sat back in his seat, watching the motel across the street with disinterest. The red truck in the parking lot shone in the light. “And you didn’t sense anything evil about it?”

“Not in the slightest.” The music from the game paused. “Why? You get anything?”

Aziraphale frowned, and shook his head. “Not … exactly. But I’m uneasy about this whole thing, Crowley. Not just the weather, bad as that is, but … something feels wrong.” He crossed his legs. “I can’t put a name to it, exactly, but there’s just a strange feeling about all of this.”

“Yeah, two kids you like a lot are in a truck chasing tornadoes. Gives me a weird feeling too, angel.” He propped a foot on the steering wheel and crossed his other ankle over it. “S’called anxiety, not sure you’re familiar with it.”

“I’ve known you for 6000 years, of course I’m familiar with anxiety.”

“That was unfair.” Crowley sniffed, only theatrically offended, and the game resumed. “I have a condition.”

“Which I am familiar with, my dear demon. You’ve made my point.” He waved a hand. “Either way, that’s not the feeling I’m talking about. It’s … Well, it’s almost like we’re being watched. But I don’t sense any goodwill, and you said you’re not sensing any hatred or anger, so?” He made a vague gesture, and then settled his elbow on the windowsill, chin in his hand. “It’s a bit hard to describe.”

Crowley looked to him over the rims of his glasses. “You know, now that you brought it up, I’ve noticed it too. Just thought it was being out of England, though. Or a demon thing.” He shifted in his seat. “We’ll have to pay attention tomorrow.”

“Yes. Yes, quite.” He glanced sidelong at Crowley. “You don’t notice it now, though?”

“There’s a cow about 600 yards that way staring at the road,” Crowley said, pointing to the west. “Only thing watching us around.” Aziraphale hummed a noise of agreement, and settled back. 

“Do you ever get bored of your games?” he asked, at length, gingerly sliding the seat back and propping his feet on the dashboard. The 4-Runner’s engine purred and the fuel gauge needle, which had been on ‘E’ since early that morning, fluttered. Crowley glared at the radio. “Don’t you start that. Bad enough the Bentley loves him.”

“Jealous?”

“Possibly slightly.” Crowley tapped the phone screen a few times, and then groaned. “‘Course I get bored of this stuff. But, you know.” He let his head fall back. “Can’t read, didn’t pick an audiobook yet, and I’m not interested in the thing you’re reading right now, sorry.” He unpaused the game. “I’ve got a few podcasts but, eh, you probably wouldn’t like them. Suppose I could get out some headphones,” he considered, after a moment. 

“What’s a podcast?” Aziraphale asked, hands folded on his stomach.

Crowley looked at him, eyebrows raised, although he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Aziraphale had yet to even get a mobile, and his technological comfort zone didn’t go much past 1945. “Like a … ah, like a radio show? Can be about anything. Educational, entertaining, unsolved mysteries, ah … interviews …”

The angel looked intrigued. “Like a radio play, you said?”

“Some of ‘em, yeah.”

“Let’s try it.”

The game paused again. “Really, Aziraphale? Go on, I know you’d rather read your … what’s it called?  _ Mainlander _ ? The one with the time travel lady, right?”

“ _ Outlander _ , yes.”

“Right. You can read your book, I’ll put headphones on if I feel like listening -”

Aziraphale pouted. “But I’d like to listen to one.”

The demon looked dubious of this assertion. “Really? You’re serious?”

“You like them, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then pick one you’d think I’ll like and we’ll listen together.” Crowley looked shocked. Aziraphale sighed, and reached across the center console, hand outstretched. Comfortably, Crowley slid his into it. “You listened to me read an entire  _ Outlander _ book, even though you hated it -”

“I didn’t hate -”

“Let’s try a podcast, Crowley.” He squeezed the demon’s hand. “You like the funny ones, I’m sure.”

Crowley watched him for a minute, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then cautiously, closed his game and flipped to a different app. “If you’re sure.” He chewed his lip. “And, uh, yeah. I prefer the funny ones.” He considered the options, squinting at the enlarged print on the screen over the tops of his glasses. “Right. What’re you in the mood for? Murder, dungeons and dragons, advice, ah … no, that’s technology, you wouldn’t like that one, ah, oh, and history.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows had gone up when Crowley had started listing the options. “I thought you said you preferred the funny ones.”

“I did do, yeah.”

“Murder?”

“It’s a comedy murder podcast.” Crowley caught a glimpse of his expression, and snorted. “It works, but we can skip that.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Hm. What kind of history?”

“American, mostly.”

“Do that one. Apropos to the current situation, no?”

“Right.” He tapped something on the screen, and then handed the phone to Aziraphale. “Pick a title that looks interesting. Just tap on it when you want it, and then tap the little triangle in the bottom left.” There were a few quiet minutes while the angel browsed, and then he grinned. “Do you have any idea what ‘whalesplosion’ might be about?”

“At a guess,” Crowley sighed, “an exploding whale?”

“I suppose we’ll find out. I wonder how it relates to American history.”

“Never paid as much attention to America,” Crowley agreed, adjusting himself in the seat to hold Aziraphale’s hand more comfortably, while the other laboriously hit ‘play’ on the podcast. The 4-Runner, which had never linked its bluetooth capabilities with Crowley’s phone, and indeed hadn’t really wanted to, nevertheless did so, projecting ‘You’re listening to the Dollop -’ over the top-of-the-line speakers* with beautiful crystal clarity.

[* _ Which it hadn’t had, until Crowley had sat in it _ .]

Twenty minutes later, and Aziraphale and Crowley both were laughing, exchanging incredulous looks, and wordlessly agreeing that they  _ really _ should be paying more attention to America. And that they would certainly be choosing a second episode at the conclusion of the first one.


	7. When you walk in, everyone says "Good morning!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tornadoes are afoot. Alas, so is the game.

Adam could have whooped when Noel informed him and Lucky that they wouldn’t be meeting in the lobby until nine the next morning. “There’s gonna be storms, probably to the northeast, but it’ll be afternoon by the looks of it. Get some sleep tonight, boys, an’ we can meet up for a late breakfast and decide where we’re headed.”

They didn’t unpack much - pajamas, toothbrushes, and that was about it. Adam took a hot shower, quick as he could, and when he got out, he found Lucky laying on top of his covers, earbuds in, face-timing with a friend. Adam gave him a thumbs-up - his turn for the shower if he wanted it - and settled onto his own bed. He pulled his phone out and made sure he was connected to the wi-fi before he texted his parents to see if they were awake - they hadn’t been, but they were so eager to hear from him that they took his call, voices thick with sleep but happy nonetheless. He could hear Dog snoring on their bed in the background.

They were happy to talk to him. They were glad to hear he was having fun, and reminded him to be careful and stay safe. He told them about Lucky, and Noel and Rachael, and everything he’d learned so far. “It sounds like a good experience,” Arthur Young said. “Very educational. Just ah … you do  _ know  _ when the tornadoes are coming, don’t you?”

“I mean, kind of. For the most part. They can be unpredictable.” He heard his mother make a worried noise. “No, mum, but like, they have this program called Baron, it’s running all the time, and it shows radar and gives warnings, and Rachael and Noel have been doing this for  _ ages _ , so they’re really good at it too. And careful.” He considered telling them about the safety precautions Noel had reviewed earlier, but considered that the things he had warned them against might actually be more alarming than the safety instructions that followed. He decided to leave it out. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry, promise. How’s things at home?”

“All well and good,” his mother replied. “We miss you of course, and Dog misses you - he was sniffing around in your room the day you left - but Anathema said she’d have a word with him and he’s settled down since then.” He heard the dog’s collar jingle as his mother, or father maybe, presumably gave him a scritch behind the ears. “He’s a very good boy.”

Adam grinned at the unmistakable sound of a small dog’s tail wagging so hard it was beating against the bed cover. “Aw, yeah. Give him a hug for me, yeah?”

“Of course, love. Arthur, hug Dog, would you? He’s closer to you.” Adam’s mother yawned, drowning out some of the grumbles in the background and the sounds of more happy tail-wagging. “Have you spoken to your friends? Oh, and Anathema and Newt asked about you this afternoon.”

“Not yet, figured it’s kind of late. I’ll send an email.” He yawned as well, prompted by his mother. “Maybe in the morning. You can tell them I’m good though, if you see anybody; not sure I’m up to calling tonight. Sorry, I’m kind of beat.”

“Jet lag,” his father answered sagely. “You ought to get some rest then, Adam.”

“You guys too,” the boy added earnestly. “Sorry to call so early - I’m all messed up with the time zones -”

“No, Adam, we’ve been waiting to hear from you.” He smiled, and the slight ache of homesickness that had settled in his chest as soon as he’d boarded the plane lifted a little at the warmth in her voice. “Text anytime, love, and we’ll talk if we can.” She blew a kiss into the phone. “But get some rest for now, alright? Sleep well, and let us know how tomorrow goes!”

“Will do, Mum, Dad. Talk to you guys later. Lots of love.” He ended the call, and sat back against the pillows, continuing to tap on his phone, sending the video of the hail storm off to the group and his sister. To his surprise, Pep texted back almost immediately, sending a message of ‘Dude what!’. He paused. Then he called.

“Hey storm rider!” she answered. “What’s up, Adam? Cool video!”

He couldn’t help but grin. “Hah. What are you doing up?”

“Driving into London with the girls later today, and I couldn’t sleep. Hopefully Addie is willing to drive because I’m going to be napping.” She yawned. “So how’s America?”

“Crazy.” He laughed. “I went to Dunkin Donuts this morning.”

“Mm. America runs on Dunkin, I’m told. You meet anyone cool?”

“Well, the people I’m with are really cool.” She made a curious little noise. “So there’s Noel and Rachael, the guides - I told you about them. They’re super nice. And I think between the two of them they might know everything about weather. We drove for like, 11 hours today, and you know we only went through two entire states?”

“Wow.”

“And I napped for part of it but a lot of it they were teaching us stuff … Man, Pep, there’s so much.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “I know you guys always made fun of me for how much I talk about weather sometimes, but honestly I don’t know like … anything.”

“Well, maybe not compared to the experts,” she teased. “But compared to me and Brian and Wensley you know way more than any of us.” She coughed. “So who’s ‘us’ on your trip? There’s another student?”

“Oh! Yeah. He’s cool.” Adam heard the shower shut off, and wondered how much he should really say. “He’s American, but he lived in London for a while, he said. You know, I think his dad might have even worked at the air base?”

“ _ No _ ,” Pepper laughed. “No way. Only you, Adam, would find the one American in the entire world who even knows about Tadfield and grew up in London. And  _ of course _ he’s obsessed with weather. You should find out if he lived in Tadfield at any point, like when he was a baby or something.”

Adam considered it. “Nah,” he said at length.”What’re the odds?” He yawned again, as Lucky stepped out of the bathroom, dressed only in boxers, scrubbing his hair dry with a towel. “I’m sure we’ll talk about it at some point.”

“You’d better. Tired?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, me too.” He heard the sound of sheets and pillows being pushed around. “Might try to get a couple hours before I have to go.”

“‘M gonna go to sleep too.” He let his eyes drift closed. “Jet lag’s brutal.”

“I bet. And all that time in the car probably didn’t help.” She yawned, too. “Can you send us more videos tomorrow?”

“If I see anything, yeah.”

“You think you might?”

“Dunno. Everything’s supposed to happen in the afternoon, so we’re gonna wait to see what the morning looks like.”

“Well. Send us stuff even if you don’t see anything. Send us videos of weird Americans.”

“Yeah, okay. Talk to you later, Pep.” He hung up the phone, laughing while he did so.

Lucky flopped into his own bed, yanking the covers up over himself. “Friends?”

“Yeah, back home. Pepper.”

“Isn’t England like … six hours ahead of us?”

“Yeah.” Adam shrugged. “I dunno, she said she was up. Figured I’d give her a call.” He grinned at his phone, before locking the screen and plugging it in to charge. “I sent the gang a video of the hail. Most of them prob’ly never seen hail that big before.”

“Yeah, that was wild.” He folded his hands behind his head. “Hope we get a tornado tomorrow.”

“That’d be cool.” He sighed. “Pep told me to send more videos. Said if there wasn’t anything interesting in the weather I could send her videos of crazy Americans.”

Lucky laughed. “I’ll act extra crazy tomorrow if we don’t get any storms. You can send her a video.”

“I’m not sure she’d count you, since you grew up in London.”

“Nah, only until I was eleven, and even then other than the like … the housekeepers and the gardener, everyone was American. Well, except Nanny. But she was Scottish.” He shrugged. “Then my dad got reassigned back to the States and I’ve lived stateside ever since. So I’m pretty American, I guess.”

“Eleven?” Adam asked, pointedly not opening his eyes. “Huh.”

“Yeah it was weird.” Lucky yawned. “There was this whole thing in the middle east and then boom, back to America, no more England. Honestly, I think my mom was just sick of random diplomatic trips. I’ll tell you about it some time, that whole trip to the middle east was so weird.”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, faintly, feigning fatigue. “Yeah, gotta remember to tell me about it. Never been to the middle east.”

“You’re not missing anything. Avocado farms and weird professors and that’s about it, far as I remember.” He shut the light off, and rolled over, away from Adam. “G’night, dude.”

“Night,” said Adam, on autopilot. Minutes later, he heard quiet snoring, and all the better, because his mind was racing.

Most eighteen-year-old boys are, by nature, not particularly introspective. They may be bright, they may be clever, they may be well-educated and top of their class and very high-achieving, but it’s the rare boy who is capable of reflecting on all of the information presented to him, reconciling it with what he already knows, and then reaching accurate, logical conclusions that may be distressing to him. Often, denial worms its way in early, and until the correct answer knocks the boy in question directly on the head, the powerful lure of denial will always draw him away, convincing him that another conclusion is more likely, or more desirable.

Adam Young, though, was not most eighteen-year-old boys. To start, he was the Antichrist, even if he’d turned his back on that years ago and preferred not to think of himself in those terms. Further, he  _ was _ quietly introspective, a trait he’d developed due to, well,  _ being _ the Antichrist, and always, in spite of himself, watching his own thoughts for hints of Not Being Adam. Messing About. Antichristly things, essentially.

That could be to his advantage, though. And right now, his mind was cranking into overdrive, combing through what he knew. Warlock Dowling - father might have worked in Tadfield, was working in England when Warlock - Lucky - was born, Lucky was raised in England. Satanist nanny and monk gardner. Random trip to the middle east when he was eleven, followed by a sudden departure from London, never to return to the UK again. Or the middle east, come to think of it.

Adam wondered if he had stayed in touch with anybody from London. Particularly, the nanny and the gardner.

It all sounded  _ very _ suspicious.

“We would have been with you from the beginning, you know, but there was a mix-up,” Aziraphale had told him once, years ago. Adam remembered that he’d gone to Aziraphale crying - it happened sometimes, more then but still these days, blessedly rarely - about what he’d done in the few brief hours when he really was the Antichrist. The things he might have brought about. The fate he and the world had so narrowly avoided. Adam remembered how the angel had hugged him, stroked his hair, dried his tears. “It was an unfair burden to lay at your feet, Adam, and Crowley and I always wanted to help but … there was a mistake. Best laid plans, and all that. It doesn’t undo what was done, and I am frightfully sorry about the lead-up, the way we treated - or didn’t treat - you, but know that had we known, we would have been there. But Adam, even then, you were brilliant. You are brilliant.”

_ There was a mix-up. _

Warlock Dowling snored gently.

\- 

The next morning dawned hot and sticky. Lucky and Adam woke with the alarm around eight, and lazily set about getting ready for the day. Adam checked his phone to find messages from his friends about the hail storm (“don’t let those brain you,” from his sister and, “dude what if it hits you,” from Brian), replied when he felt it was indicated, and pulled on a pair of shorts and an old t-shirt. Lucky was ready to go shortly after, and they stepped out of the motel room and into the air. Lucky made a noise of disgust.

“Talk about humid.”

“Ugh, yeah,” Adam agreed, trying to ignore how his t-shirt was already sticking to his skin, even though he’d only just come outside. “Good storm weather though, yeah?”

“Should be. I’m sure we’ll get a look at the radar over breakfast.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get us a tornado today, huh?”

“Or some serious hail,” Adam agreed. A part of him - a large part of him - wanted to say sod it to the weather and have a serious talk with Lucky about his upbringing, his birth, his life to that point. How old was Lucky? They were roughly the same age, Adam knew that, but they could easily be a year or so apart, and all of the stuff that sounded suspiciously occult might have just been a coincidence. After all, it was all relatively easy to explain, in the harsh light and oppressive humidity of the Oklahoma day: American diplomat posted at a British airbase, family moved to the nearest metropolitan area, lived there for years, made a brief foray to the middle east - and America was so involved there around that time, Adam remembered, that that was hardly unusual - and then returned to America. Unusual, certainly, but not … occult. And having a diplomat for a father wasn’t exactly commonplace, so even then a bit of unusual-ness could be forgiven.

The Scottish Satanist nanny, though, reared her presence in his mind. The monk gardener. Good and evil.

Adam shook his head, when he realized that Lucky was speaking to him. They’d walked to the truck together while Adam thought and, on autopilot, he had set his stuff in the bed of the truck and closed the gate. Noel and Rachael were nowhere to be seen, not yet, but Adam thought he heard them talking on the other side of the motel. “Huh?” he said, looking to Lucky.

“Nothing,” the other boy shrugged. “Just talking about the radar. All this moisture and warmth - if we have any cold air from the northwest at all, we run a really good chance of catching a storm today.”

“Yup.” Adam leaned back against the truck and looked around the parking lot idly, arms crossed over his chest in spite of the heat. He briefly locked eyes with a stranger - a businessman, by the looks of him, dressed all in brown, with neatly-combed salt-and-pepper hair - that was sitting on the trunk of his rental car, reading a book. The two exchanged taut smiles, and the stranger returned to his book. “Hopefully out in the middle of nowhere, where we can get a good look without too much people an’ stuff being around.”

“Yeah, that’d be ideal.” Lucky waved to Noel and Rachael as they approached. “Hey guys!”

Rachael raised her thermos in greeting. “Morning morning! You guys ready to hit it? The radar looks pretty good.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yep.” Adam opened the back gate of the truck for her, and she tossed her bag in. “You hungry? I’m starving. Hop in, we’re gonna hit the Waffle House and go over the game plan.”

“No Dunkin?” Lucky looked surprised.

“Gonna mix it up today, get exciting.” Noel snickered. “And also she has her own bag that she used to brew a pot in the room earlier this morning, so she’s already fueled-up.” He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “She’s an addict, guys, I’m telling you.”

The boys laughed, while Rachael pointed out, “There’s worse things. Alright, let’s go, we have a storm to talk about, and I want some waffles!”

The Waffle House was such a uniquely American experience that Adam started taking video almost as soon as they entered. From the way the entire restaurant greeted them as they walked in, to the waiter’s accent, to the menu itself, he sent all of the snaps to his friends. There was no reply, not when it was so early in England, but he looked forward to the messages that would probably come through later, after everyone was up. 

He tucked into a truly massive waffle and two eggs for breakfast, topped with a few strips of crispy bacon. It tasted exactly like he’d imagined it would, and he devoured it with gusto, finishing before Rachael even got through her second cup of coffee. Noel, still working at his omelet, pulled his laptop out of his bag and handed it over the table to Adam. “Check out the radar, Adam, and see what you think. There’s some really interesting stuff shaping up; let me know where you think it might be.”

Adam cracked the computer open. Next to him, Lucky studied the screen intently with dark eyes while Adam poked the cursor around the radar screen, randomly at first, and then slowly in a more organized fashion, tracing fronts and pressure systems, gradually hovering more consistently over a spot in mid-Kansas. Lucky nodded, never speaking, when he agreed, pointing at times. Across the table, Noel and Rachael shared companionable silence, Rachael with her coffee cradled in her hands and Noel slowly working at his food.

“Ready to show your work?” Rachael gestured to Adam to turn the laptop around, after he and Lucky had exchanged a few words and seemed to settle on a location. “Let’s see it.”

“I think,” Adam said slowly, pointing to the screen, “the best shot of anything happening is going to be right around here.” 

“Hey!” Rachael grinned broadly. “Nice job, guys!”

“Yeah?” They exchanged a high-five. “Yeah!”

“Maybe a little more east,” Noel added, after he’d swallowed his last bite of omelet. “But really good for day two! What made you settle on that area?”

Adam and Warlock traded off explanation duties as Rachael settled up with the waiter, she and Noel adding information and correcting them as needed. In the truck, they settled in, Rachael in the driver’s seat for the first leg, and set course for Kansas. There wouldn’t be as much lecturing today, Noel assured them, and although Adam was eager to learn, he was truthfully a little grateful for the break after yesterday’s download. As they drove across the plains, he and Lucky put their headphones in, Adam listening to his playlist of tried-and-true favorites while he took video of the blue skies and white clouds, saving them to send later, when he could get to wi-fi. Around nine, he did get a text from Aziraphale - Crowley’s phone, of course, but the grammar and punctuation gave the angel away - bidding him to stay safe and out of trouble. He smiled, faintly, and settled back in the seat to watch the landscape drift by.

Lunch was sandwiches from a little deli they passed on their way through a town for gas. Adam savored the turkey and cheese in the back of the truck, Noel informing them that the time would be tight for the afternoon storms and they couldn’t afford a proper stop. He must have drifted off after he ate, because the next time he woke it was because Rachael had nudged his knee. She pointed to the screen of her laptop, excited. Adam leaned in. “Look at this,” she said, excited. Adam nudged Lucky, who had likewise drifted asleep with his headphones in, and ignored the muzzy noises the other boy made as he woke. “See the body of it there? It’s been holding steady for the last hour.”

Adam squinted. “Is that a hook echo?” He pointed to a part of the screen. 

Rachael, thoughtful, turned the screen to look. “Ah, no! But it might be an elephant trunk-type signature …” She studied it for a few seconds. “We’ll keep an eye on it. You awake, Lucky?”

“Mm yeah.” Still blinking the sleep from his eyes, Lucky unbuckled his seatbelt, the better to lean forward and study the computer.

“Check out the base velocity data.” She changed views, and both boys blinked. “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

“Not … really.” Adam cocked his head. “Something about the wind speed in relation to the radar site?”

“I think I’ve seen it before,” Lucky chimed in. “Is it … wait. Green away and red toward? Or red away? Or is it speed …”

Rachael shook her head. “Not quite, but you guys are already ahead of the game - a lot of chasers your age don’t know anything about base velocity until after their first chase. Maybe we'll even cover CAPE tomorrow. So Lucky, it’s red away, and green toward.” She pointed to the screen. “Doesn’t really have anything to do with the  _ speed _ of the winds, just how they’re moving in relation to the weather station. So when we’re looking for rotation, obviously, we want to see red and green really close to each other, right?”

“Makes sense,” Lucky agreed. 

“So look here.” She pointed. “Now this stuff up here -” she twitched her hand to gesture vaguely at a scattering of red amongst green, “- I think is just artefact but  _ this _ , this looks concentrated. See that?”

Adam and Lucky exchanged a look. “Like, it’s the dot, right?” Adam guessed.

“More or less.” Rachael flipped back to the regular radar view. “But you see how it correlates to a high-precipitation area? Means there’s probably a mesocyclone in there.” She clenched and unclenched her fingers, excited. “We might get a tornado today, guys. Definitely a lot of lightning, if the precipitation holds together.”

“How far out are we?” Lucky asked, shifting anxiously in his seat.

Noel answered this time. “Probably an hour or two. We should start seeing some more interesting clouds soon. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Adam and Lucky settled back, each looking out of their own window, while Rachael and Noel talked about something else - photography, and something with Rachael’s lightning set-up - in the front seat. 

“Have you ever seen a tornado?” Adam asked Lucky, as he craned his neck to see more to the front of the truck.

“Oh, yeah! Not up close, but one time in Virginia there was a little one and I could see it from the back yard. It didn’t last very long, but it was really cool. You?”

Adam thought about the tornado in Tadfield, when he was eleven. “Nah,” he said, stuffing the memory away. “Been in a few bigger storms, but you know … England.”

“Yeah, really severe weather isn’t really a big thing over there, huh? They get tornadoes though sometimes. I think.”

“Really little ones usually, yeah,” Adam agreed. “They don’t last long, normally, or do much damage.”

“I know another chaser from England,” Noel chimed in as he drove. “He comes over for the season every year. We were talking about it one time, he said that England has the second-most tornadoes per land area in the world.”

“Seriously?” Adam blinked.

“Yeah, but it’s a small area.” Lucky frowned. “And they’re not big?”

“No,” Noel agreed. “Not usually. He lives right in what he calls England’s tornado alley.” He laughed. “A little southwest from London I think he said? I can’t remember the name of the town. Most of the twisters there are around 95 MPH wind speed, so they’re not really that powerful, but he told me he chases over there sometimes, if he’s home when they’re around. He showed me a few photos.”

“It was pretty cool - you don’t really think about tornadoes in England,” Rachael chipped in, absently. “Where in England is Tadfield, Adam?”

“Northwest of London,” he answered, using the city as a reference point. “About, oh, two hour drive I think, usually.” He did not add that most of the recent times he had traveled to and from London by car, the car was being driven by a demon, and travel time was therefore significantly reduced. “It’s not a big village at all. Biggest thing there is the air base, and even that’s pretty small now. Population-wise, anyway. It’s mostly computers.”

“I think that’s why my dad got reassigned to London,” Lucky said thoughtfully. “Plus, you know, diplomat. London made more sense I guess.”

“Yeah it would do.” Adam looked sidelong at the other boy. Lucky didn’t notice, staring out of the window. “So you were born in London?”

“No, actually. It’s kind of a crazy story - my parents were supposed to fly in to the air base together, but my mom ended up having to go alone for a few days because there was something with the president? I dunno, Dad never actually said what it was. But anyway Mom flew in and then like, went into labor while she was staying at the air base waiting for him, so I ended up being born there.” He shook his head.

“Oh.” Born at the air base. Adam could have laughed with the relief of it. Another thought occurred to him. “Aren’t pregnant women not supposed to fly, though?”

“I dunno, probably.” He shrugged. “I guess when the president says go, you go.” He snorted. “And  _ then _ , get this: so like, she’s at the air base, but then she said they didn’t have a doctor that knew how to deliver babies? So she had to go to this old hospital with nuns to have me. Worked out in the end, Dad got there after I was born and we went to the place in London like they’d planned.”

_ Old hospital with nuns _ . The words echoed in Adam’s ears, in between the pounding rush of his own heartbeat.  _ Nuns. Satanic nuns, maybe? How do you ask if someone was born in a hospital full of Satanic nuns? _

“Wild story,” said Rachael from the front seat, but as far as Adam was concerned, she might have been a thousand miles away. “See the clouds up ahead?”

“Supercell!” he heard Lucky say, distantly, and the other boy - the other boy who was born in an old Tadfield hospital with nuns, to a politically-connected family, and then was raised by a satanic nanny and had a monk for a gardener, and  _ then  _ went to the middle east when he was eleven - leaned forward to start chattering on with Rachael and Noel. About storms.

Adam loved weather, but at the moment, nothing could be further from his mind.

“When’s your birthday?” he blurted out, stopping the other three mid-conversation. Then he blinked, realizing what he’d done, as Rachael and Lucky looked to him, puzzled. “Sorry, never mind, wasn’t paying attention.” He forced a weak smile.

“August 23. You okay?”

“Yeah,” Adam lied, immediately turning to look out the window. “Wow, check out that cell!”

“... Yeah. It’s big.” Lucky looked over to Rachael, who had raised her eyebrows questioningly. Even Noel was glancing curiously between the two students in the rearview mirror. Lucky shrugged at Rachael, the universal ‘I have no idea’ gesture. “You alright, Adam? Really?”

“Fine.”  _ We have the same birthday, born in a weird hospital with nuns, we’re  _ probably _ the same age, they thought I was him, they thought he was it, it was him, it was this guy _ …

“Nerves are totally normal,” Noel said a little more quietly, not taking his eyes off the road, or the storm cell ahead. “Don’t worry - we’re gonna get plenty of videos if anything happens, but we’ll keep our distance. It’s early still - by the time we’re another week in you’re gonna wanna drive the truck yourself.”

_ It was him, he was the mix-up, it was _ \- And then Adam stopped himself, because some part of him realized that this wasn’t productive, he wouldn’t change or alter anything with this line of thinking, and furthermore, he was in the back of a truck which was headed straight for what looked, on radar, to be a supercell with significant tornadic potential. “No, it’s fine,” he insisted, with a shake of his head. “No, I’m sorry. Sorry, really, I think I’m just still a little messed up from the time change, but I’m fine. Seriously,” he added, when Rachael and Lucky looked to him, radiating concern and curiosity. “Let’s do it - I’m so ready.”

Rachael watched his face for another minute and then made a decision, apparently, because she nodded ever-so-slightly, and turned back to her laptop, maneuvering it so the two in the back seat could have a better view of the screen. “Good, because you see that on radar?”

“Hook artefact,” Lucky breathed, as Adam watched the picture twist on the screen, the red blob at the center of the storm leaving a trail to the southwest that was just so slightly starting to curve north-easterly. 

“I think so. Let’s take a look at the base velocity.” As she switched views she grinned, and Adam saw what she was moving to point toward right away. “See it?”

“Mesocyclone?” Adam asked, eyes wide and fixed on the tight red dot in the middle of the green, insisting his brain focus on the task at hand. There would be plenty of time to really process the fact that he was sitting with the other Antichrist - the not-Antichrist, the mix-up kid - and hunting tornadoes with him later. 

“I think so.” Rachael looked up, out of the windshield, and the students followed her gaze. Ahead, the clouds towered, gray and ominous and piled on top of one another, all the way up to the stratosphere. “Looks good for a tornado, guys.” A bolt of lightning shot through the clouds, illuminating pockets and curves. “Let’s get it.”


	8. Cloud-based collisions of ice generate an overall positive charge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys finally see a tornado, Aziraphale is too classy for Denny's, and Crowley has anxiety.

Adam considered, as they drove down the highway, the massive mothership of a supercell looming to their northeast, that Noel would benefit from a few driving tips from Crowley. When there weren’t tornadoes on the line, he supposed, it was alright to go the speed limit and signal and leave at least three car lengths between the truck and whatever vehicle was in front of them, but now, well, they’d miss it if they didn’t hurry, wouldn’t they? Adam took a deep breath, and looked out of the window, and watched the lightning crack through the clouds.

Lucky - Warlock Dowling, what a name, of  _ course _ he was the other kid - was looking frantically between the radar screen and the cloud, chattering on with Rachael, oblivious to the realization Adam had reached half an hour ago that had completely changed everything. “How close do you think we’re going to get?” Lucky asked, leaning across the back seat and into Adam’s space, the better to see the storm. “Look at it.”

“It’s massive.” Adam nodded, looking forward to the rearview, catching a glimpse of Noel’s eyes in the mirror.

“Not too close,” he answered. “You get too close an’ it gets a little dangerous for my tastes. An’ Rachael gets better video and photos from a distance, anyway - media really likes to pick up the dramatic shots of the whole storm.”

“Near the end of the trip we might push in a little closer,” Rachael added. “See if we can drop some probes in the path of the thing, if it’s safe enough. Today we’ll just let you guys get your eyes full while we get some photos and video.”

Noel mused, “Maybe I’ll set up the lightning probes too, just as a test run. Next time, you two will help with that.”

Rachael was watching the storm too, smiling and occasionally glancing to the laptop, refreshing the radar image. “This is meant to be educational, after all. But today you can just enjoy.”

Noel steered the truck onto another highway - more northerly, shooting up to get to a spot to the storm’s southeast. “We’ll be on it in another ten or fifteen. How’s the precipitation looking on radar?”

“Not terrible. We should be okay if we stay more to the south.”

Adam watched the storm like a hawk - out of the windshield, now, he and Lucky leaning together in the back seat the better to peer forward through the front seats - for any wall clouds, or funnels. Rachael pointed ahead of them, suddenly excited. “Look! Look, you see it? Inflow!”

Sure enough, there was a line of scud clouds being pulled toward the mass of the storm and there, Adam saw, eyes widening, was the wall, hung low under the dark cap. “Is it rotating?” he asked, trying to see. “I don’t see a funnel.”

“No funnel yet, but look behind it.” Noel pushed the gas a little more, accelerating to 10mph over the speed limit, the fastest he’d dared to go. “See the debris and dust blowing around there?” The corn fields were whipping in the wind, and there definitely was a darker cloud of dust, stirred up in the strong gusts. “Rear flank downdraft. Watch that wall cloud, guys - there’s gonna be a twister there soon enough.”

“Kind of far away to get a good view of it,” Rachael said, fiddling with her camera. “Speed up?”

“I’m already speeding. Besides, we’ll be in long-lens range in a few minutes. I don’t see a funnel yet, so I think we have time. And hey!” Noel honked the horn and actually did accelerate a little, as the truck passed a painted van on the left, decked out with a stylized tornado logo. “We’re ahead of the Flatlands crew! Hey, guys!” Rachael waved as well, and the other van honked back in acknowledgement. 

“That is something they don’t tell you about storm chasing,” she said, as Noel passed a few more cars. Closer now, Adam stared at the wall cloud. Very subtly, he could see it rotating. Wicked. “There’s traffic with it. And this is the only good-looking storm on radar today, so you know we’re going to see  _ everybody _ . Or at least everybody who’s out today.” She wagged her eyebrows at the students. “If we pull off make sure you keep your eyes peeled - you might see some storm-chasing celebrities.”

“Jim Cantore?” Lucky asked then, visibly excited at the prospect.

Noel shrugged. “Maybe. Hurricanes are usually more his speed, but he’s been known to chase now and then. He’s usually got a TV entourage with him, though, so if he’s around you won’t miss him.”

“Cool.” Lucky jumped, and no sooner had he moved than Adam saw what he thought had prompted it. “Is that a funnel?”

Rachael scanned the cloud, beaming. “Sure is! Nice spot, Lucky! Can you get us somewhere good, Noel?”

“Coming right up.”

Adam watched the funnel, practically unblinking, as Noel braked and turned off onto a dirt access road where two other storm-chasing trucks had stopped to watch. Light rain pattered against the windshield, but he didn’t bother with the wipers, opting instead to pull over onto the berm a bit ahead of the other trucks. Without a word, Rachael seized her camera and jumped out, jogging around the front of the truck and across the street to prop the camera on a fencepost and start fiddling with the settings. By the time Adam had jumped out and jogged over next to her, he could hear the shutter snapping rapidly, lightning and the funnel starkly visible against the dark storm clouds and dingy yellow sky behind them. 

“Is that a debris cloud?” Lucky asked over the wind. It was cold compared to the heat and humidity they’d been in all day, but Adam couldn’t bother to shiver as the currents at the lead edge of the storm whipped his hair and blew dust against his bare calves. To the rear of the funnel, on the ground, there was a cyclone of sorts, spinning and whipping the corn.

And then there it was: thin, tenuous, but pale gray and spinning and indisputably there. A tornado. Adam whooped, excited, and Lucky did the same, pointing and laughing. Rachael was laughing too, as she snapped photos of the tornado and the lightning, and behind them Noel grinned, hands on his hips. “Grab videos, guys!” he reminded them, as the tornado strengthened, grew thicker and more upright. “First tornado!”

Hands shaking, Adam fumbled his phone from his pocket and started videoing as fast as his clumsy fingers would allow. “Listen to it!” he narrated, tracking the little tornado as it spun across the cornfield. “First tornado, here in Kansas! It’s wicked!”

“How strong do you think it is?” Lucky asked, trotting up and down the fenceline, a bundle of nervous excitement. “Look at that tree! Look at the branches!”

“Taking branches off like that? Maybe EF2.” Noel shrugged, chuckling. “Pretty thing though, isn’t it? And what a view, out in the middle of all these fields.” He sighed. “Gorgeous little rope. You getting anything good, Rachael?”

“I think so! Can’t have ordered a better view.” She sighed, happily, barely audible over the storm. “And so much lightning - really, it’s just gorgeous.” The shutter clicked a few more times. “What do you guys think?”

“This is so cool!” Lucky jogged back behind Adam, his phone held delicately, the better to snap picture after picture.

“Yeah, wild.” Adam couldn’t stop smiling as he watched. Debris lofted around the tornado’s base, corn and fence posts and tree branches, spinning through the air and falling down. He brought his phone back up and snapped a few more photos. 

“You feel the downdraft?” A bolt of lightning cracked through the air, striking the ground to their north. Noel jumped, instinctively raising his hands to cover his head. “Shit! That was close, Rachael!”

Rachael straightened up, suddenly clutching her camera close to her chest. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe -” another crack, and even she winced “- back to the truck! Everybody! In!” 

Adam and Lucky didn’t need telling twice, although Adam did sort of jog backwards toward the truck, loathe to take his eyes off the tornado for a second. It was dying, though - the funnel at the top was still strong, but the base was getting wispier, the body of it thinning out and even becoming invisible in places. Lightning licked down again, this time striking not 100 yards away from where they’d just been standing, and the smell of ozone filled his nose. He turned, and leapt into the truck. 

“Everybody in?” Noel glanced into the back seat, the ruddy prairie dust on his face doing a fairly good job of concealing that he was paler than usual underneath. “That was close, eh?”

Lucky nodded. “Really close.”

“Little bit of excitement on top of your first tornado.” Noel turned back around and started turning the truck around, heading for the road. “We should get moving anyway - the hail will be along any minute. You think we should track with it, Rachael?”

Rachael studied the radar, frowning. “... Yeah,” she answered, at length. “Yeah, head northeast if you can. More east than north. If we stay to the south of the cell we might catch another one.” She shook her head. “It’s so weird.”

“What is?” Adam asked, as the storm raged on to the north and Noel maneuvered the truck onto a road that pointed them in the right direction. Rain started to fall harder, and Noel flipped on the windshield wipers. He accelerated, too - presumably trying to outrun the line of hail. 

“That was a lot of lightning for that part of the storm.” She frowned. “Lightning is unpredictable, sure, but you generally see more of it at the leading edge, not out by the downdraft. Remind me to tell you why later.”

“Okay.” Adam and Lucky exchanged a look, and a shrug. “But that was unusual?”

“Definitely. If I’d known we would have that much lightning in that area I would have thrown out a probe or two. But  _ usually _ the bulk of it happens to the northeast of any wall cloud or mesocyclone, so I didn’t think …” She sighed. “It is unpredictable, though. Nature of the beast.” She shrugged too, then, and turned to the students. “Did you smell the ozone?”

Adam nodded. “I did.”

Lucky shook his head. “I was already in the truck. Maybe a little.”

“That was really close.” Noel glanced out of the window to the storm, brow furrowed. “I’d say you’ll have another shot at it, but to be honest I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t like it that close. Say what you will about tornadoes, but at least you can kind of track them. Lightning, though …”

“Yeah, it can come out of nowhere,” Lucky agreed. “Is that another wall cloud forming or just nothing?”

Rachael studied the formation, and Adam cocked his head. “Maybe. I think another area of rotation for sure.” She checked the radar. “Let’s head that way.” She pointed along a stretch of roadway, and Noel nodded. “And then just tip a little to the east, I think.”

They chased for a while longer, but the first tornado was the only one that Adam managed to film - there were two or three more little ones, but they came and went, barely brushing the tassels of the corn, before he remembered to get his phone out. For the most part, Noel followed Rachael’s guidance with an uncanny knowledge of the unfamiliar roads to keep them in good view of the storm itself and out of the line of precipitation, but eventually the storm’s rotation died out, and they were left in a pounding downpour. Noel pulled over to the roadside to wait for the worst of it to pass - even with the wipers on the highest speed possible, visibility was terrible. 

The weirdest part, Adam thought as they waited, was the lightning. There had been a lot of it - he knew there was generally a lot of lightning in thunderstorms, and he’d seen plenty of videos of high-lightning storms, but to have so much in so many areas of the storm itself seemed unusual. This was confirmed by Rachael, who remarked on it as she watched the storm dissolve on the radar. 

“Anywhere we went near the thing there was lightning.” She shook her head and chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I would have said it was following us.”

“I hope not.” Noel leaned his head back against the headrest. “Storms are dangerous enough as it is, we don’t need them to develop sentience.”

“Yeah.” Rachael laughed again. “Nah, it was a really high precipitation storm - between that and the atmospheric instability, no wonder there was a ton of lightning.”

“Oh, right.” Lucky looked up from his phone, pausing his perusal of his photos and videos from the day. “You were supposed to tell us how lightning works?”

“Oh! Yeah! As much as anyone knows, anyway.”

Noel didn’t open his eyes, but he did elbow her. “Maybe a little more than anyone else knows.”

She snorted. “Flattery gets you nowhere. How about we go over it over dinner? The real question is -” she turned around in her seat to fix the students with a genuine smile. “What did you guys think of your first tornadic storm?”

“Amazing!” Lucky enthused. “Seriousy - when it came down out of the wall, and then it was like … it was going along the ground with all that power! Crazy!” He glanced down to his phone. “I can’t wait to edit these more - I think I got some really good ones.”

“You have to show me when they’re ready. How about you, Adam?”

Adam thought about it, only for a second, before he answered. “Really cool.” He looked out of the window, thoughtful as the rain ran down in streams. “It’s hard to find words for it, but like … just how wild it is but then it’s gotta be so organized at the same time.” He waved his hands a little, trying to mime the shape of the clouds. “And the way that stormcloud looked was just … really awesome.” He frowned. “I should have taken more pictures.”

Outside, the rain was letting up a little. Noel opened his eyes, sparing Adam a kind glance in the rearview mirror as he started the truck back up. “Well, I don’t want to say we’re gonna have a lot more opportunities for lightning like today, but if you want  _ clouds _ , Adam, then we wouldn’t be doin’ our jobs right if we couldn’t get you plenty of chances to photograph some clouds.”

“Deal,” Adam replied with a grin. 

Noel slapped the steering wheel. “Deal! Alright, dinner and lightning lecture. Where to, gang?”

-

When the red truck pulled back out onto the road, two occupants of a black SUV watched it carefully. Crowley waited a few seconds, until the truck was well ahead and a few other vehicles separated them, and then pulled out of the parking lot they’d settled in to wait, following at a distance. In the seat next to him, Aziraphale was frowning out of the windscreen, silent and thoughtful. The 4-Runner crackled through a few radio stations, searching for something suitably relaxing, and settled on a mellow country song, the singer crooning about a lover saving him from drinking his sorrows away. 

“Cat got your tongue, angel?” Crowley asked after a while, fingers drumming on the wheel.

“What?”

Crowley rolled his eyes; with the ever-present dark glasses, one might have thought this would be difficult to discern, but over the years Crowley had turned eye-rolling into a sort of whole-body expression. “You haven’t said a thing since the tornado.” One eyebrow crept up toward his hairline. “Been a while since you’ve seen one, hm?”

“... Yes,” Aziraphale answered, slowly. “Yes, it has, but it wasn’t that, Crowley.” Tornadoes were a powerful force of nature, but as an angel and a demon, run-of-the-mill forces of nature weren’t exactly breaking news for either of them. “Did you notice the lightning?”

Crowley thought about it. “There was a lot of it.”

“Yes.”

“Eh, it’s a thunderstorm though, isn’t it?” He waved a hand to the remainder of the storm outside, rainy and windy and slowly fizzling out. “You get lightning with those.”

“There was a  _ lot _ though, Crowley. And so close.”

“... Yeah?” He looked to Aziraphale, puzzled. “It was a storm.” Silence, filled only by the hum of the car’s wheels on the highway. “You don’t think … ?”

Aziraphale breathed out through his nose, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know.” He looked out of the window, irritation and concern blending in equal parts into a conflicted expression on his face, visible only in profile. “I’m sure you’re right, just a storm. They  _ do _ have lightning. I’m probably overthinking it.”

They drove for a while, the silence hanging heavy between them. “I don’t feel anything,” Crowley said, after a while. “I can’t … there’s not anything anymore, anyway.” He was drumming his fingers on the wheel again. “We’ll pay better attention next time, yeah?”

Aziraphale nodded immediately. “Yes. Yes, certainly.” He took another breath. “If it was something, I didn’t notice it at the time, either. Although I wasn’t looking for anything.”

“Well no, but if it  _ was _ something, it wasn’t anything big.” Crowley chewed his lip as he thought it over. “Would it need to be, in a storm like that?” He reached out, experimentally, letting the less corporeal parts of himself brush up against the stormclouds and run across the energy there. He’d never been good at weather, but there was  _ so much _ energy, just at the edge of the thing, although it was thick now, lazy and settled. There was a lightness and a warmth there, too, and he realized Aziraphale was doing the same thing. 

“Possibly not. But Crowley, lightning is volatile.” The angel frowned. “I don’t like it even on the best of days. It’s a rare angel that bothers with it.”

“Demons, too. My type go in for the fire, generally.” He winced. “Hastur likes it, though.”

“And Gabriel.” Another silence, thicker and fraught with anxiety this time. “They wouldn’t, would they? Maybe a lower demon or a guardian angel, but after everything that happened,  _ they _ wouldn’t - ”

Crowley shrugged. “Why would they? Nothing to gain, right?”

“He  _ is _ the antichrist.”

“ _ Was _ .” Crowley pressed his lips into a thin line. “Not anymore. It’s been seven years - they can’t expect he’ll change his mind.”

“Could it be they’re trying to get him to use his powers more? Perhaps that would awaken something in him?”

“He doesn’t have much in the way of power anymore.” Crowley glared at the radio as some cheery country-rock song came on, and the 4-Runner changed the station obligingly, improbably finding a classical music station in the middle of rural Kansas. “I think even if he tried these days he wouldn’t be able to do much besides a little minor magic. Light switches, opening doors, that kind of thing. Not world-ending things.”

Aziraphale was quiet for a minute, and then made a little noise of agreement. “You’re right, of course. Even if he  _ did _ try … No. No, I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure it was just a storm.” He patted his knees. “You’re right. Nobody that makes a habit out of playing with lightning would bother.”

“Still, won’t hurt to pay attention next time,” Crowley added. “You know, just in case.”

“Yes. Agreed. Just in case.” And then he brightened, anxiety melting away in a breath. “Do you think they’ll stop for dinner?”

Crowley groaned. “Yes, but we can’t go into the same restaurant, angel. We’re supposed to be undercover.”

“We could get take-out.” 

“Someone would still have to go in.” He watched as, up ahead, the red truck pulled into the parking lot of a chain italian restaurant. Aziraphale pouted. Crowley sighed. “There’s a Golden Corral down the street.”

“ _ Absolutely not _ .”

They exchanged looks, and then Crowley looked over the top of his glasses, pointedly, to the other restaurant the Olive Garden shared a parking lot with. “I hear they do crepes,” he said, quietly, eyes flicking back and forth between the angel and the Denny’s. 

“ _ No _ . I have standards, Crowley.”

Crowley threw up his hands. “Well, those are your options, Aziraphale, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Aziraphale sniffed, indignant. “I wasn’t that hungry. I certainly don’t  _ need _ the food.”

“Sometimes, I hear, gas stations have sushi,” Crowley grumbled, just to needle the angel a little more.

Aziraphale made a face. “Not that I’ll be eating.” He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the asphalt. “Might as well take a walk, stretch your legs.”

“I’m a demon - they don’t need stretching,” Crowley pointed out, but he shut off the 4-Runner and hopped out anyway. They settled into step next to each other, strolling around the edge of the parking lot, Aziraphale’s hands folded primly behind his back and Crowley’s stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. “You know, we haven’t talked about the other issue that might come up.”

“Oh?”

“Warlock. Lucky,” Crowley corrected, quickly. “Surely all these hours on the road, they’ll get to talking. At some point Adam’s going to find out Lucky lived in London.”

“Well, yes, but so what? Lots of people live in London. His father is a diplomat, it’s hardly a stretch to think -”

“And are born in Tadfield?”

Aziraphale looked dubious. “I don’t have much experience with teen boys, Crowley, but I hardly think that’s something they talk about regularly.”

“Why not? They’re in that truck  _ all day _ , angel.” They stopped under a lightpost, and Crowley shrugged. “Anyway, Adam’s smart. So’s Lucky, of course, but Adam knows what he is and knows there was a … mix-up. A case of mistaken identity. Maybe more, if you told him anything else.”

“I didn’t. And besides, that would still be quite a leap. Even if they realize they have the same birthday, unless they know they were born at the same hospital …” He frowned. “Well, Adam would probably guess, anyway, at that point. He is quite bright.”

“Right. You’re not worried about that?”

“Hm? Oh, no. No.” Aziraphale shook his head, smiling. “No, they would have to discuss their birthplaces, and as I said, unless I’ve very much misjudged the usual conversational topics of teenage boys, I’m sure they’ll never put two-and-two together.”

“Even if Lucky talks about us?”

Aziraphale laughed at that. “But he doesn’t know us, dear boy, not really! He knows Brother Francis and Nanny Ashtoreth, but not  _ us _ . Unless you’ve told him in all your correspondence?”

“No, never,” answered Crowley, and he felt a little guilty about it. He’d wanted to oh, so many times over the past seven years. Tell the kid the truth, let him in on the secret, if only so Crowley wouldn’t have to struggle to remember every time he wrote back to the kid what Lucky did and didn’t know about their lives. 

“Then I’m sure neither will be the wiser.” Aziraphale set off again, and Crowley tagged along, a half-stride behind.

“Wish I had your confidence,” he grumbled, skirting around a discarded hamburger wrapper and a cigarette butt, unconsciously sliding his right hand out of his pocket, the better to take Aziraphale’s in his. The angel didn’t say anything, just gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re probably right.”


	9. Jackson County, Missouri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonding, and speculation, and a corn field.

The next day brought a trip to the great state of Missouri, and more tornadoes. Bigger, this time, and longer-lived. Adam and Lucky watched with great enthusiasm as the powerlines flashed when the tornado tore through them, though their enthusiasm flagged later, as they watched the biggest tornado of the day lift a barn entirely up off the ground and hurl it, in pieces, hundreds of yards to either side. 

When the danger had passed, Rachael drove the truck toward the property, the students taking in the destruction as they trundled past the bits of barn on the way up the farm road. Noel and Rachael led the way to the farmhouse, where they knocked on the door and checked on the homeowner and were assured that, “it was just hay in the barn, thanks for checking but we’re fine, appreciate the stop.” 

“It should be a compulsory part of storm chasing,” Noel told the boys solemnly as they piled back into the truck. “Lots of chasers do it, and that’s great, but I’ve seen vans and trucks blow past a trashed building just to keep following the storm.” He shook his head. “No excuse for that, not really.”

With the farmhouse confirmed safe, they drove after the storm for a little while longer; Rachael decided they would forgo the lightning probes, because they hadn’t really seen enough bolts to make it worth the trouble. Finally, the storm fell apart near the capitol, and they called it a night. Noel was driving by then, and when the group decided a diner sounded just perfect for a quick bite before bed, he somehow managed to navigate to a greasy spoon on the side of the road that promised some of the best burgers in the midwest. Adam wasn’t typically a fan of burgers, but when faced with a claim like that, he felt it was fairly mandatory to at least give them a try.

They chatted idly about the storms of the day while they waited, Adam nursing a Pepsi and Lucky working on a black-and-white milkshake. “So what are we thinking about tomorrow?” Noel asked, over the rim of his coffee cup.

Rachael had the laptop out, and she didn’t look particularly happy. “Not … not looking good. Not for the next few days, as much as I can estimate.” She sighed. “I can look again in the morning, for sure, but if there’s anything, it’s going to be little, and it’ll be all the way up in South Dakota, probably.”

Noel winced. “Worth the drive?”

“Well … I mean, I’ll check tomorrow, but if you want my money on it … no. Sorry. There’s a few little system set-ups in the works, but nothing I can foresee producing anything worthwhile. Probably a bust day.”

Lucky and Adam looked to one another curiously. “So what do we do on bust days?” Adam asked, over the slurping of the milkshake. Though this was supposed to be an educational trip, he was sort of desperately hoping the answer wasn’t going to be studying. Certainly, if he was in America, there would be something to do besides sit around and study.

“Well, Noel has some textbooks in the truck that you two can share, and -” Rachael caught their expressions and started to laugh. “Nah, just kidding. I mean, you can if you want to, but that doesn’t sound very fun, does it?” They shook their heads slowly. “Noel and I have a lot of photos and video to edit, and we’re gonna be pretty tied up with that most of the day, but since we won’t be traveling anywhere, might make sense for us to head back to Kansas City tonight and stay there. You guys can explore around tomorrow if you want, check out the local scene. There’s museums and stuff there, or shopping, or whatever you might want to do.”

Lucky nodded. “Kansas City’s good with me. I’ve never been.”

“I have once,” Adam said, as the waitress set his food down in front of him. Regardless of the quality of the burger, it was certainly one of the  _ biggest  _ burgers he’d ever seen. Next to him, Lucky made a confused noise that reminded him a little of Crowley, and made something that felt like homesickness twist in his gut, although that might have just been hunger at the sight of the burger and fries. “Nah, just kidding.” He picked up a fry and smirked at the other boy. “I’m game though.”

“I was so confused for a minute.” The waitress set down Lucky’s meal: an enormous plate of fried chicken. “Oh man, oh yes.”

“You really gonna eat all that?”

“Or die trying.”

Noel sighed wistfully. “I wish I could still eat like that without needing a handful of antacids afterwards.” He’d ordered a BLT for himself, and Rachael had chosen a tuna melt.

“You can have a piece if you want?” Lucky pushed the drumstick close to Noel, who shook his head. “Sure?”

“Enjoy it for me. Much as I’d like it, I’d prefer to sleep tonight.”

While the group ate in silence, Adam considered his burger. It was certainly good, but was it one of the best? He chewed each bite thoughtfully, and tried to balance the juiciness of the meat with the sharpness of the cheese and the varied tastes - sweet, acid, umami - of the condiments. About a quarter of the way through, he settled on the conclusion that it maybe wasn’t the  _ best _ he’d ever had, but it certainly was in the top five. He set it down to take a photo of it for the Them, which he would include with the tornado pictures when he sent them later.

“You guys still have to show me your pictures,” Rachael said, the sight of Adam’s phone jogging her memory. “Lucky, you took a million yesterday and today - I heard your camera. Any favorites?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed his mouthful of chicken. “I’ll show you when I’m not greasy.”

“Deal.” She cocked her head, a loose lock of dark hair falling across her nose. She brushed it out of the way. “How about you, Adam?”

He considered the photos and videos he could remember. “I think some are pretty good,” he concluded. “My friends back home loved some of the ones from yesterday, but I think that was more because of the tornado and not as much the quality of the photography. I’ll show you when I’m done.”

“That’s fair.” She nudged Noel. “I know you have some great pictures, I heard your camera going off all day like it was going out of style.”

Adam ate quietly as the two storm chasers bantered back and forth. He grinned a little too, around bites of burger, because for research partners, Noel and Rachael were really very funny together. He wondered if they were more than research partners, but neither had ever said, and while he wouldn’t have thought twice about asking when he was eleven, at eighteen he liked to think he had picked up enough social graces through the years to know better than to come out with a question like that*. 

[* _ And if anything, Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship had taught him that obvious friendship and chemistry didn’t always infer a relationship that any involved parties would be willing to talk about for any length of time without blushing, or turning into a gigantic serpent and escaping through a window. Although Adam also knew the latter was significantly less likely within the general population. _ ]

“So where are you guys from?” Lucky asked, and Adam startled out of his reverie. “I mean, I read your bios online, but like - Noel, you’re from around this part of the country, aren’t you?”

“Not quite - I’m from Montana.” Noel’s expression changed when he mentioned that state, settled into something calm and peaceful. “Big Sky country. Not too many tornadoes up that way, but the winter storms can be something fierce up in the mountains. That’s home base for me, when it’s not chasing season.”

“So you like snow and stuff?”

“Oh, yeah! Cross-country skiing, trapping, fishing.” He laughed. “Growing up out there, just me and my mom, it was a little wild. She’s kind of a frontier-woman type, so we grew or hunted a lot of our own food.” He shrugged. “Not that I don’t love it, obviously, nothing better than being out in nature if you ask me, but I do like being able to run to the store when I’m out of peanut butter. College domesticated me, I guess.”

“Education’ll do that,” Rachael agreed, laughing. “One minute you’re Grizzly Adams, the next you’re eating Top Ramen and yelling at the weather channel in an air-conditioned dorm because it’s kind of hot outside.”

Noel acted affronted at that. “My dorm didn’t have air conditioning.”

“Oh, so sorry, my mistake.” Lucky and Adam were laughing, which Adam rather suspected was the intended outcome of the little show the two were putting on. “Was it actually a constructed building or did you fashion your own dorm out of hewn logs?”

Noel shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me build a log cabin on campus, can you believe?” He nodded her way. “Anyway, that’s me, what about you? Where you from? The public wants to know.”

“Florida.” Rachael sighed. “Sorry to say, I am Florida Woman.” Lucky and Adam laughed again. “Fighting alligators, selling fake Superbowl tickets, finding manatees in the swimming pool while filming UFOs … Yes, all my doing.”

Lucky looked somewhat worried, and Adam paused. “Wait, really?”

“No.” She scoffed. “Well, okay, one time a manatee did get into our pool, but that was one time. During a hurricane.” She waved a hand. “Storm surge, you know how it is. Anyway, I did  _ not _ grow up on the wild plains of America - I grew up like a normal American kid in a kind-of-nice trailer park on the Gulf coast, and was already completely civilized by the time I arrived at college.”

Adam nodded. “Did you guys meet in college, or … ?” he trailed off, letting the question hang. Rachael’s mouth dropped open.

“How old do you think I  _ am _ ?”

He winced. Wrong question. “Sorry, I just -” but she was laughing anyway, and he relaxed and broke into a grin. “Sorry.”

“Kidding, kidding. No, we didn’t meet in college. Well,” she amended, “I was in college. He was working for OSU at the time, I think?” Noel nodded in confirmation. “Anyway, I was working with OSU’s lightning research team and he was helping with the mesonet, so that’s where we met. Then a few years later, when I was looking to do more lightning research for my PhD, he had started storm chasing, and he actually hired me on.” She shrugged. “Free research opportunities for me, and another driver for him.”

“Plus I can pay her in Dunkin coffee, which is a lot less than what the other candidates I interviewed wanted,” he joked. She made a face at him. “Alright, and money, yes. Even things like health insurance and a retirement fund, eventually.”

Rachael pushed her plate away, the tuna melt long gone and the fries all but eaten. She rested her face in her hands. “Yeah, that was a bigger adventure than storm chasing was that year, I think. God, getting him to do literally any amount of official paperwork is actually painful.”

“Which is why I gave her a raise and expanded her duties to include the business operations.” He snorted. “Worked out great for me - I just keep the truck and the equipment running, and don’t get us killed, she finds the storms and does taxes.”

Lucky was frowning, and Adam could almost imagine what the other boy must be thinking. He watched Lucky chew a french fry thoughtfully, swallow, and then open his mouth. Rachael, grinning like a shark, headed him off before he could get a word out. “If you’re about to ask if we are anything more than business partners, the answer is no. Everyone thinks so, though.” She sighed. “Alas, I’m married to a lovely woman who holds down the fort in Florida, and Noel here is married to the state of Montana, I think.”

“Yeah, okay.” He shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“And you both just really like weather?” Adam asked, also choosing to push his plate away, although the handful of fries left were practically calling to him. “S’how you got into storm chasing?”

“I mean, I grew up in lightning country, so I guess it just carried on from there. I always liked it, wanted to know how it worked.” Rachael shrugged.

“I like road trips and tornadoes,” Noel answered, simply. “I went to college with a plan to get a business degree or something, but I actually went chasing for the first time after my freshman year with some friends, kind of fell into it, and switched my major to geology after that.”

Adam sat back. “Wicked.”

The waitress came back with the bill, and they all threw down a little cash, before gradually wandering out to the truck. Behind the storm, the sky was clear and dark, a few stars winking over the light pollution. Noel looked up as they crossed the parking lot and sighed. “You know that’s the thing about Montana. It really does have a sky you don’t get anywhere else. Figuratively speaking.”

“My Dad took me out to Colorado once,” Lucky said, conversationally. “We were out at some base in the middle of nowhere. The stars were insane - you could see the milky way and everything. Back home, there’s so much light pollution you’re lucky if you see enough stars to count on two hands.” He sighed, wistful. “Sometimes I think I might move out this way after school. I’m sick of DC, anyway.”

“Can’t imagine it’s a quiet place to live,” Rachael said sympathetically. “And if you’re looking to study meteorology it’s nice to have it closer to your backyard, so to speak. ‘Course, if you stay in Washington, maybe you could lobby against climate change.” Lucky made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, and stuck out his tongue. “Or not. Just a thought.”

“No way. I’m over it. The whole DC rat-race.” He waved his arms, and then hauled the door to the back seat of the truck open. “Forget it.” Once seated, he looked over to Adam, who was fiddling with his seatbelt in the dark. “What about you, Adam? You think you wanna stay in England?”

“Oh, yeah,” Adam replied, without even having to think about it. He had, after all, made up his mind about that ages ago. “I like to travel and everything, though, so it’d be cool to find some job where you get to do that a bit. But yeah, Tadfield’ll always be home for sure.”

“That’s cool.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs, wiping the last remnants of chicken grease off on his shorts. “Is it a big place?”

Adam shook his head. “Oh, no. Few hundred people at the outside. But it’s close to Oxford, and not all that far from London, so it’s kind of the best of both worlds, I guess.” He looked out of the window, and tried to ignore the feeling of homesickness again - definitely not hunger anymore, no way it could be after that burger.

There was quiet for a minute, and then, gently, Rachael said, “Have you ever been away from home this long before?”

“Not alone,” he answered, automatically, and then he flinched, glad for the darkness and the fact that his face was turned away from Lucky. He wasn’t ashamed that he hadn’t traveled alone for an extended trip before, not at all, but he didn’t want the Lucky to think he was some homesick little kid, either. He shrugged, as if he were bored with the subject, “I’ve gone away with family for a couple weeks before though, on holiday.”

“First trip on your own is always tough,” Rachael answered, tone neutral. “I guess if we’re not going to be chasing tomorrow you’ll have time to call England at a reasonable hour, though, so there’s something, right?” She cracked the laptop open, her smile visible in the soft glow of the screen. “Silver lining in every cloud, right?”

-

When they arrived in Kansas City, the sun had long-since set, and the lights of the city illuminated the sky with a soft glow. They found a hotel on the outskirts of the city, cheap and clean, and parted ways to crash for the evening. Adam was looking forward to a quick shower and the soft embrace of a hotel mattress, but as he started to unpack for the night it appeared Lucky had other plans.

“So what do you think we should do tomorrow?”

“Huh?” He paused, t-shirt in hand, half-pulled from his bag. “Oh. I dunno. What do you want to do?”

Lucky thought it over. “Dunno. We could just wander around the city, I guess. Oh, there’s an amusement park. You like rollercoasters?”

“They’re cool.” Adam shrugged. “Any museums or anything? Or like, barbecue?”

“Oh, a barbecue tour. Might be cool.” He tapped at his phone for a while, and scratched his beard thoughtfully. “What about this haunted building walking tour?”

Adam kept his expression placid, very carefully. “Oh yeah? They have enough haunted buildings to do a tour?”

Lucky put his head to the side. “Yeah, I guess. Oh, man, if we had a car we could take a day trip to the Garden of Eden, apparently.”

That drew a laugh out of Adam. “The Garden of Eden?” he asked, incredulous. “In driving distance? What is it, like a religious amusement park or something?”

“No, no, some people believe that the Garden of Eden was here in Missouri.” He giggled. “I always heard Eden was in the middle east or whatever. Like the Mesopotamia area. Guess it could have been in Missouri though. Why not? No one really knows.”

Adam laughed a little harder. “I dunno, maybe someone does.”

“What, you know some immortals?” Lucky grinned. “Or wizards? You are English - is Hogwarts real? I mean, I did move away when I was eleven, I could have missed my letter.”

“Never been to Hogwarts, nah. But you never know.” He shrugged. “All kinds of scholars figure Eden was in the middle east. Maybe one of ‘em has an inside line, you know?”

“To who? God?”

Adam, unable to stop grinning, repeated, “You never know. Anyway, I’m gonna grab a shower. I’m in for the haunted building tour thing tomorrow, though, if you want to do that.”

“You think they’re real?” The question stopped Adam halfway to the bathroom. “Ghosts, that is.”

Adam considered it. He could be honest**, of course, but then would Lucky think he was weird? On the other hand though, the other boy had been the one to bring up the ghosts in the first place. He chewed it over for a second, and then shrugged again. “Nah.”

[** _ Not completely honest _ .]

“Oh. I do.” He frowned. “I mean, I’ve never seen one, but there’s so many people that believe they exist, and that they’ve seen them, there has to be something to it, right?”

“Well, maybe …” Adam chewed his lip, and then, after a second, smiled. “Yeah, maybe, but to play devil’s advocate for a minute, what if it’s not ghosts at all, but a totally natural phenomenon? Infrasound, or something?”

Lucky cocked his head. “Huh? What’s that?”

Adam looked to the shower, and then tossed his pajamas into the bathroom, carelessly strewn on the tile floor, before he turned back around and headed to sit on his bed, legs crossed, across from Lucky. He raised an eyebrow. “Infrasound. Supposedly can make people see and hear all kinds of stuff. Hallucinations and everything.”

“I’ve never heard of it.” Lucky tossed his phone aside and fixed Adam with his full attention. “It can make people see ghosts?”

Adam grinned, wide and wicked, and leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees. “You ever heard of the incident at Dyatlov Pass?”

“No. Is it weird?” Adam nodded, and a half-cocked grin started to make its way onto Lucky’s face. “Cool?” Another nod. “Mysterious?” A very affirmative nod. Lucky was beaming now. “Dude, tell me  _ everything _ .”

So Adam did. And the pajamas sat, forgotten, on the bathroom floor, until the early hours of the morning, while the boys chattered on.

-

With the boys safely tucked into the hotel for the night, Aziraphale and Crowley had elected to make a quick side-trip. They hadn’t had far to go, and at Crowley’s driving speed with was barely any time at all before they’d arrived.

“Independence, Missouri,” said Crowley, quietly. 

The 4-Runner’s brakes didn’t dare squeak as it pulled to a stop. The engine hushed and shut off, and Crowley and Aziraphale sat for a long minute, staring out of the dark windshield to a field lit only by the car’s headlights. They didn’t need them, so Crowley shut them off too. “City of Zion,” the angel remarked, dryly. “Site of the Garden of Eden, they say.”

“I don’t remember all the corn,” replied Crowley. Aziraphale didn’t respond, instead opening his door and stepping out of the car, into the humid night air. Above, the stars that managed to shine in spite of the light pollution glimmered weakly between the gaps in the clouds. 

The angel surveyed the field below them, and when he spoke again, it was in a language so long-dead that at first, Crowley had to scramble to figure out what he was saying. But it surprised him, too, how easily it came back, how it rolled off his tongue when he replied, like it had never died, never been shattered to the four corners when the Tower fell.

“It’s funny, how they think, don’t you think?” He shook his head, blonde curls bouncing, and chuckled a little. “I do wonder what our lives would have been like if it had really been here, don’t you?”

Crowley was silent for a second, and then Aziraphale looked over, surprised, as a skinny elbow dug into his ribs. “Maybe I’d have been a  _ corn snake _ .”

Aziraphale scowled immediately. “Crowley,” he admonished, while the demon burst out into laughter. “You’re speaking a dead language that’s not been heard in thousands of years, and you make a  _ pun _ ? Have some respect.”

“I never will.” He ran his hands through his hair, still snickering, before he sighed. Wistfully, or maybe thoughtfully, he said, “If the Garden was actually in Missouri … Well, for one, we’d have different accents.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” He left the demon to his own devices for a minute, giggling and making terrible puns in a tongue long-forgotten, and instead looked over the crop fields, flat and stretched out across the plains. On the other side, he could just barely hear the sound of running water.

“Oy, angel.” Startled by the break in his train of thought, Azirpahale looked to Crowley, wide-eyed. The other was watching him, and because his sunglasses were perched on his head, sending Crowley’s mess of red hair in all sorts of directions, Aziraphale could see his eyes properly. He looked amused, most of all, but somewhere underneath that he was watching Aziraphale carefully. Thoughtful. “What’re you thinking about?”

“The Garden. The real Garden.” He looked all around, listening while the creatures of the night cried and squeaked and chirped. “Do you think, Crowley, that if it had been here - really, in real life - things would have gone the same?”

Crowley puffed out a breath. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Deep, angel. S’a big question. You’re giving everything a whole new beginning, for a start. It’s all so big, an’ ineffable, hard to know, isn’t it?”

“The ineffable plan might have stayed the same.”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably. “It … would be different though, wouldn’t it? It’d have to be. The Garden is in a whole different place.”

“Not necessarily. What happened in the Garden probably didn’t happen just because the Garden was where it was. It happened because of the plan -”

“Oh, sod the plan,” Crowley said, his usual sentiment accompanied by a disgusted little noise. “It happened because Eve wanted to know what else was out there, and Adam agreed with her. And She made it easy for them to find out, in a way.” He pointed upwards, to where the moon was trying to peek through the wispy clouds left behind from the day’s storms. “Could have always put it up there.” He snorted. “She never had a plan, she just set the pieces out and let them fall where they did.”

Aziraphale scowled in the way he always did when he disagreed, and disapproved, but he didn’t say anything about it. It was an argument they had had time and time again - Aziraphale arguing that the plan was ineffable and therefore extant but not anything either he or Crowley would ever be able to understand, and Crowley arguing that there was no plan to begin with, and She was ad-libbing and rolling with the hits as they came. It was also an argument he didn’t feel like having tonight. Instead, he re-set his expression to a more neutral, thoughtful one, and slid his hand into Crowley’s. The demon, wordlessly, squeezed it. “What about us?”

Crowley looked surprised. “What about us?” He shifted nervously onto his heels, and then laced his fingers through Aziraphale’s, the better to keep his balance.

“Would we have turned out the same, do you think?”

“I …” Crowley trailed off. He thought it over. Aziraphale let him, and stood beside him in companionable silence, trying to corral his own ideas about that question into something he might be able to elucidate. “Depends,” Crowley decided, eventually. “I’d have still done the bit at the start of it all, but after that …” He fixed Aziraphale with a curious expression. “Would you have still given away your sword?”

It was a question Aziraphale hadn’t expected, only because the answer to it was so obvious. He blinked. “Of course.”

The demon nodded, satisfied. “Then angel, I would have followed you to the ends of the Earth to find out what you were going to do next, no matter where we started.” He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. “So we’d probably have ended up just the same.”

The thought of it was quite enough to bring a warm, comfortable smile to Aziraphale’s face. He stepped closer to Crowley, standing near enough that their shoulders bumped and settled together, familiar and soft in spite of Crowley’s bony joints. “With different accents.”

“Well, yeah. With different accents. Naturally.”


	10. Haunted Doll Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here ... we ... go.

Day broke, bright and sunny and clear. At the crack of eleven, Lucky and Adam rolled out of bed, shuffled to the nearest fast-food restaurant that was still serving breakfast, and, suitably fed, started their ghost hunting tour.

As with most such places Adam had been to, the first several haunted locations they wandered through were not actually haunted. Adam had a knack for picking up on that kind of thing, in spite of never having seen a ghost, and although he stepped into every place with an open mind and a hopeful heart, for the most part he only found dust and tourist traps. By the fourth stop on the walking tour, he was starting to despair, although Lucky was convinced they’d already encountered about five ghosts, and was trying to explain to Adam why a creaky door on mis-matched hinges meant the old house they’d just left was  _ definitely _ haunted.

Adam  _ had _ been ghost hunting before, back home, with friends from school and the Them, and knew from those experiences that most places that were purportedly haunted actually weren’t. Still, he’d been hoping America would be different. A part of him - a part of him that was still a kid playing in Hogback wood - thought maybe after all those gangsters and cowboys had died in this country, a few of them had stuck around. 

But Lucky was having a good time, and in spite of the disappointing lack of ghosts, Adam was having just as good a time tagging along behind. Some of the places had free wifi too - after days out in the Great Plains, where  _ cell service _ was sparse, much less wifi, this was a welcome development that he was taking full advantage of to message his family and friends. Brian had been shocked to hear there wasn’t a tornado in America every day, and once they hit the free wifi at the next haunted house, Adam read through ten more messages with increasingly-dramatic expressions of disbelief. He read them aloud, too, to Lucky and the two of them laughed, before sending the other boy a picture of the awkward-looking wax sculpture in the entryway of a home that declared itself “Actually haunted!”

“Put money on it?” Lucky offered, picking a tri-fold brochure up off of the desk in the entryway. “I bet it’s actually haunted.”

“I’ll give you two dollars if it is,” Adam wagered. “And if not, I get two dollars.”

“Deal.” Lucky looked thoughtful. “How will we know if it’s haunted?”

Adam raised his eyebrows and asked, mildly, “How have we known with any of the other places?”

“... You have a point.” He thought further. “Maybe something more indisputable? Not just creaks but like, an EVP or an apparition or … ?”

“You have something to record EVPs?”

Lucky shrugged and brandished his phone. “Just this. Could be worth a shot.”

Around them, the old house creaked as tourists moved through it, and outside there was the sound of traffic and pedestrians and general city life. The boys exchanged a look. “Could be tough,” Adam said, unnecessarily.

“I still wanna try it.”

“Okay.” 

The house was a late-1800s Victorian-inspired monstrosity; a rabbits’ warren of small rooms and narrow hallways strung together in such a way that you really could only see bits and pieces of the house at a time, with the exception of whatever room you happened to be standing in. The furniture, too, was authentic to the period, although Adam wasn’t practiced enough to tell if it was genuine, or just a reproduction. Aziraphale probably would have loved it, either way. Adam pulled out his phone and snapped a few pictures, making a mental note to send the photos to Crowley for Aziraphale to look at, once he was back on some wifi. 

Maybe he could even video call them later, he thought, tapping the back of a chintz wingback chair, bedecked in truly hideous upholstery. He took a close-up photo of that as well. 

“Looking for orbs?” Lucky asked when he next wandered by, looking around the room like he wasn’t sure what to examine first. “Good idea.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” And then, to confirm the story, he looked to the phone’s screen and flipped back through the photos he’d just taken. Chintz furniture, glass-front cabinets, and out-of-style curtains, nothing more. No orbs, no shadow people, no ghosts. He told Lucky so, and the other boy sighed.

“Let’s try another room. It’ll be quieter in the basement, maybe we can even get some EVPs down there.”

“Lead the way.”

They did not have better luck in the basement, although had either Adam or Lucky been sound engineers they would probably have been fairly well-pleased with the ‘footsteps crunching in old basement’ recording they managed to get while waiting for some kind of ghostly reply. His enthusiasm waning, Lucky led the way back upstairs, this time all the way upstairs, to the top floor. Adam poked around in the bedrooms while Lucky explored the maid’s quarters in the attic, theoretically trying to get some EVPs up there while Adam photographed the rooms below for orbs. Neither had much luck, and, discouraged, they re-united in one of the child’s bedrooms.

“I think it’s a bust,” Lucky sighed, obviously disappointed. “Maybe it’s that it’s daylight, you think? Not that we’ll be able to be in any of these places at night, but I wonder if we’d have better luck then, like, when the spirits are more active, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Adam said, sympathetically. “Probably, yeah?” The bed was old, and the quilt covering it looked fairly ancient as well, visible as it was beneath a mass of dolls that looked like they’d been plucked from the nearest antique store with the primary intention of being as unsettling as possible. He picked up his phone to photograph it. “Maybe one of the next few houses? We could stop for lunch, then hit a couple more -”

Lucky made a noise that might have been an agreement, and turned to leave. And then both boys froze, because without warning, one of the dolls  _ spoke _ , in a tight, squeaky voice. “Antichrist!”

Lucky was the first to recover, mostly because Adam had gone very, very still and very, very pale. He stayed still and pale even while Lucky shouldered past him, the better to get closer to the bed, and lean in to the dolls. “You heard that, right? You heard it talk?”

“Oh, yeah.” Adam swallowed. “Yep, for sure.” He took a step backwards.

“It said ‘antichrist’ I think.” He looked over the assembled dolls. “Is that right? Which one of you said that?”

They shouldn’t have answered. Hauntings were hoaxes, for the most part, and the dolls should not have answered. But the dolls answered in unison, a heavy buzz coursing through them and coalescing into a word. “ _ Us _ .”

“Okay, I’m out.” Adam stumbled backwards, his shoulders bumping into the doorframe. He made to spin, to duck out of the room, but the door swung shut in his face and he yelped, scrambling backwards into Lucky, who had frozen in front of the bed, eyes wide, fixed on the pile of dolls. Several of them - not all, which made it more horrifying, somehow - were now hovering a foot or so above the bed.

“Antichrist,” they repeated, in the same awful sound that wasn’t quite a voice, and made Adam’s eardrums tremble. “Antichrist. Beware, Antichrist.” Lucky was backing up, shoving Adam with him, until Adam felt the old door at his back. Not taking his eyes off the dolls, he started to fumble for the knob, even as they continued to speak. “Beware the Duke. Beware the Warrior.”

“I can’t find the doorknob,” Adam whispered to Lucky, frantically. “I can’t find it, I can’t look to -”

“Beware the Duke. Beware the Warrior,” they repeated, and Adam whined feebly, his fingers scrabbling weakly against the wood door. Lucky started to grab at the door too, his hand brushing Adam’s aside, but he couldn’t find the knob either, like it was gone, but it couldn’t have, it was just there a minute ago ...

The dolls flickered with another thrum of energy and said, loudly, so loudly that Adam felt the buzz of their words in his chest, “You hear us, kid? Beware!”

Several things happened at once. The dolls, as one, glowed with a pulse of hot, orange light, and the room, for a brief second, stank of sulfur and, interestingly, Adam thought distantly, given his unique insider knowledge about the infernal and divine, warm printer paper. A balmy breeze blew through the room as well, ruffling the boys’ hair. Instinctively, they both closed their eyes, Lucky with a whimper, until the breeze died down. And then everything grew very still and quiet and Adam, fully expecting to see a demon or an angel, cracked his eyes open a fraction of a millimeter.

The dolls were sitting neatly on the bed as though they had never been disturbed. Sunlight shone through the window, and, if possible, the room looked just a little cleaner and less dusty than it had before. 

The door opened at his back.

They didn’t talk while they left the house. Adam just grabbed Lucky’s shirt by the collar and pulled him back, out of the room, until they were in some hallway or another. Adam looped his arm around the taller boy’s shoulder, and they walked outside into the daylight, pale and quiet and walking in lock-step.

The old house was near to a little green space, not a park exactly, but just a handful of square feet that was tended and allowed to grow grass and two anemic-looking trees. Optimistically, someone had once set a bench between them. It was, thankfully, vacant until Adam and Lucky sat on it, Lucky slouched back, loose-limbed and vacant, while Adam curled forward, elbows on his knees and hands folded in his lap. He stared at the grass fixedly, like he might be trying to commit each blade to memory.

They didn’t really keep track of time. Some cars drove by, people walked past, and the shadows grew a little longer, though not much. Eventually, Adam sat back, and Lucky sat up straighter and then, with a quiet rustle just audible over the hustle of the city around them, two dollar bills emerged from Adam’s pocket, and found their way into Lucky’s line of sight.

Lucky looked slowly from the bills, to Adam, and, delicately, raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

It felt good to laugh. It wasn’t really a ‘ha-ha-funny’ kind of laugh, more like the laugh that comes when you’ve escaped death, when you’ve skirted around a pit and come sliding onto solid ground on the other side. A laugh that’s just to the up-side of crying, there when the dam breaks and there’s not enough restraint in the world to hold back the bubbling of relief and joy and residual horror. They laughed, and Lucky snatched the dollar bills and tucked them away into his jeans pocket. 

“That was,” Lucky said slowly, after they were done laughing and had settled down to breathe together, “super fucked-up.”

“Yep,” Adam agreed. He sat back against the bench and scrubbed his face with his hands. He was still trembling a little, and against his shoulder felt that Lucky was doing the same. “Yeah, it was.”

“What was all that about the Antichrist?” The other boy frowned, staring into some empty middle-distance. “Antichrist, the Duke, the Warrior …” He waved a hand. “Like, beware the Antichrist is a pretty solid piece of advice, but it was more like, like …” He made a face and cocked his head. “Like the ghost was  _ warning _ the Antichrist to beware, instead of the other way around. Beware of the Duke, and the Warrior.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Adam lied. He shifted on the bench, uncomfortable and quiet. “No, it wouldn’t. Antichrist is supposed to be the biggest bad guy around, right?”

“Yeah. So why would he need a warning?” He put his head to the side again, another thought occurring to him. “And also, why would they warn  _ us _ ?”

Adam forced a laugh, but didn’t respond beyond that. He looked at his phone - extended network, no wifi. He wondered how soon they could get somewhere with wifi so he could call someone, Crowley, yeah, and Aziraphale, he needed to call them in the worst way, but he didn’t have service, couldn’t talk to them about all this in front of Lucky right now -

“Maybe it’s referencing tarot,” Lucky murmured, and even in his current frame of mind Adam was impressed with how quickly Lucky was recovering from an actual supernatural experience. “Are there warrior and duke cards in tarot? The Antichrist would be The Devil …”

“Don’t think there’s a duke or a warrior,” Adam said, knowing full well that this was the case. He’d never really been interested in tarot, but Anathema was adept at it, and he’d hung around her enough to pick up on the basics. “Nothing really makes sense in tarot for those.”

“Guess not.” He stood, and stretched, and then hunched back down, hands in his pockets. “Think I’ve had my fill of haunted houses for today, what about you?”

Adam raised his eyebrows and looked up to Lucky. “If you were looking for proof ghosts exist, I think you found it, huh? Don’t really need to go wading around looking for more.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got … well, more than I wanted, honestly.” He sighed, and whatever slouch he could still muster up came out. “I could go for some barbecue. You?”

In spite of the circumstances, his stomach rumbled at the mention of food. “Yeah.” He stood up, following Lucky through the city - they very definitely skirted the haunted house, staying clear on the other side of the block - toward a place that Google assured them was a very well-reviewed barbecue spot. 

“You don’t think it’ll follow us, do you?” Adam asked. It had been bothering him, and he found himself glancing around, looking for a warrior, or a duke, or an angel or a demon. He frowned, and his fingers brushed the edges of his phone in his pocket. 

“It probably can’t.” Lucky forced a little wry laugh. “I mean, okay, not like I’m an expert on ghosts or anything, but if a ghost has been in the same place for like, a hundred years, it probably can’t leave.” He rubbed his eye. “Man, I have a headache. Did that all really happen? I didn’t … maybe I was just hungry.”

“Oh, no, no, it really happened. Definitely happened.”

“And then it said ‘kid’, right? What was that about?” He spread his hands. “All that ‘beware’ and cryptic stuff like you expect from ghosts, like in the movies, right, and then ‘you hear us, kid’. Like, what was that about? Weirdly personal.”

“Very weird,” Adam agreed. Indeed, though the entire brief event had been terrifying, and all the stuff at the beginning that sounded like it had come straight out of a movie chilled him, the  _ most _ frightening part had been at the end. Because the voice had sounded … weirdly familiar, under the warping of the dolls and the buzz of whatever energy the thing had been drawing on to speak. He couldn’t place it, but he’d heard it before, or at least he thought he had, but then again at its core it was just a man’s voice, with an American accent, and certainly that wasn’t  _ that _ rare.

“You know,” Lucky said, as they turned a corner and the strong scent of barbecue hit them both square in the face, “you know it’s super weird, my nanny -”

“The Satanist?”

“Yeah, her. She used to call me ‘the little Antichrist’. Plus other weird stuff, Hellspawn, little demon, you know. Pet names but like, from a Satanist. You think it knew?” 

Adam blinked. “Weird.”

“And she’d go on about like, me rising up and commanding the legions of Hell or whatever, but I figured she was just being motivational? In a weird way.” He snorted. “Listen, I know I make her sound crazy when I talk about her, and she was kind of crazy - okay, yeah, really crazy - but like she was actually really nice? But either way, for the ghost to -”

Adam’s guts felt like they were twisting up around themselves, and suddenly he had to … had to know, had to find out. “What’d she look like?” He jogged around to face Lucky and stopped, blue eyes fixed on the other boy’s dark brown ones. “Sorry, I know, weird question, but what’d she look like? I swear this is relevant.”

Lucky looked confused. “Uh, I … how’s this relevant?” Adam didn’t answer, and he shrugged. “Uh, I dunno. Tall, always wore black,  _ always _ wore sunglasses, Scottish -”

“Red hair?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that?” 

Adam looked down, tapped a few things on his phone, and then turned the screen to the other boy. Lucky’s mouth dropped open. “Familiar?”

“I didn’t …” He looked at the picture, which showed Adam maybe a few years younger, smiling, holding the camera for the photo at arm’s length, and a woman with dark hair and round glasses holding up three tickets to a movie or something, and, most importantly, a man all in black, with red hair and dark glasses, who looked like he was trying  _ very hard _ to be serious, failing miserably, and also flashing a sign of the horns behind Adam’s head. “I never knew Nanny had a brother,” Lucky concluded, finally, taking the phone and studying the photo.

“Don’t think she does. Here.” He pulled the phone back, flipped through a few more photos, and then displayed another one for Lucky. “How about that guy? Is he familiar? Like the gardener, maybe?”

This one showed a gathering on a beach, although it was definitely British because beach or no, everyone had jackets on. There were other kids in this one, trying gamely to start a fire by the looks of it, and there was the woman with the round glasses again, sitting in the sand and leaned up comfortably against a dark-haired man, also in glasses. And there, toward the edge of the picture, was the man that could have been Nanny’s twin brother, still all in black and wearing sunglasses, a thermos in one hand and his other arm resting around the shoulders of another man, white-blond and all in shades of dun. Lucky angled for a better look - Adam was clearly indicating the blonde man with Nanny’s brother - and then frowned and shook his head back and forth. “Nah, Brother Francis was way older. Same hair color, though.” He shook his head. “So weird, he could be Nanny’s  _ twin _ .”

“I think he  _ is _ Nanny, Lucky.” Adam grabbed the phone back one more time, flipped through a few more photos, and settled on one. “Did your Nanny drive a big, black, really old car?”

He looked perturbed. “I … don’t remember? I was little, but Nanny …” He looked at the picture that Adam held up then, of an old, black car, the blonde man leaning over the hood and pointing toward a map, scowling at the other one - Nanny, Nanny’s twin brother, whatever - and gesturing in clear frustration toward something outside of the shot. 

But it was the car. The car growled in the back of Lucky’s memory, deep in the forgotten recesses of his hippocampus, and suddenly he was six years old and sitting on the wide bench seat, Nanny driving while Queen -  _ she always listened to Queen, how did he forget that? _ \- was blasting through speakers that Lucky never really saw. She always let him have a pain au chocolate in the morning when she would take him with her into London, “for being so infernally well-behaved and gluing those coins down so securely”, and every time when they drove home she would tell him, “Now, mind the crumbs, little devil, or no biscuits in bed tonight.” And sometimes, on occasion, she would smile, and tap him on the nose, never taking her eyes off the road. 

It was  _ the _ car. 

“Oh, my God.” He looked up to Adam. “Who - how do you know her - him? Who are they?”

“He’s my godfather. Sort of.” Adam sighed, and looked from Lucky, into the street, his expression absolutely wretched. “I think we ought to talk about some stuff. I’ll buy the barbecue.”

-

The boys slowly stepped into the barbecue restaurant, shoulder-to-shoulder. Across the street, sat on the low stone wall fronting a bank building, two figures watched them. One was dressed all in gray - a light linen suit in deference to the heat - with his hands tucked into his coat pockets. The other was in black head-to-toe, save for a sheer red scarf draped around their shoulders and a red knit beanie. The black-clad figure was eating an ice cream cone.

“Do you think,” the gray-clad figure asked, after the door swung closed behind the boys, “we did the right thing?”

“ _ Self-reflection _ , from you?” the shorter one drawled. Zir tongue - black as tar - licked at the ice cream cone. Had a casual observer paused to take notice, they would have noted that the little black sprinkles all over the cone were not  _ actually _ sprinkles and were, in fact, flies. A few flew off. “Heat’s getting to you, Gabe.”

Gabriel frowned, and stuck his feet out, making a show of studying his shoes. “Raziel did say we weren’t to interfere. But then Sandalphon said he talked to Metatron -”

“Ugh, spare me.” The short one rolled zir eyes. “Falling wasn’t enough, you have to keep talking about Sandalphon? My torture will last for eternity.”

“ _ He said _ ,” Gabriel went on, “that, you know, the Great Plan just had a little hiccup, we need to go forward, and Metatron talks to God, and Sandalphon is his twin, so …”

“You never considered that Sandalphon might have lied? The great smiter? He really loves smiting.” Ze cocked an eyebrow. “Surprised he’s not right in with Michael.” 

Gabriel scoffed. “Of course I did, Beelz, why did you think I called you? But  _ Raziel _ said no interference, and if anyone’s still in touch with Her, it’s him. Besides, Sachiel and Raphael were in agreement, so maybe we really shouldn’t have.”

Beelzebub licked the ice cream again, chasing a melting rivulet down the outside of the cone. “We’re barely interfering. All we did was make some dolls spooky and tell the kiddo to watch his back. End of story.”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “It’s definitely  _ something, _ though. What’s to say -”

“For an archangel you sure do doubt a lot,” Beelzebub pointed out. “Watch you don’t trip. It’s quite a fall.”

Gabriel scowled at zem. “I don’t doubt  _ Her _ ,” he snapped, defensive. “But, you know, the Great Plan all turned out to be what? A joke? Or just the end of the first installment? She’s playing a game, Crowley was right, but I want to do my part, help out, do the  _ right thing _ , but -”

Beelzebub smirked up at him, mocking. “What a good little angel you are.” Ze licked the ice cream again, and smiled serenely as the flies scattered. “For my money, Crowley  _ and _ Aziraphale had it right all along: the whole thing’s fucking ineffable, and we can just sing along as we go.” Ze sighed, slouched back on a braced arm, and studied the remains of the cone, covered as it was in flies. “Either way, fuck it, right? Whatever keeps me from having to organize everybody again. Ugh.” Ze licked zir ice cream. “What a nightmare.”

“Hm.” A thought occurred to him. “You sing?”

“Not literally, no. Don’t be stupid. Demons don’t sing. MIght as well ask you if you dance.”

“You dance?”

“Not with you.”

“Hm.” Gabriel studied his shoes again, and leaned back as well, his elbows propped on the wall as he scowled at his feet. “I don’t like these shoes.”

“Get a new pair, then.” Beelzebub considered the shoes, and then, delicately, smushed zir ice cream cone onto Gabriel’s left toe. “Now you have to.”

Gabriel flicked the cone off, irritated but not angry. “You didn’t have to do that. Now my sock’s going to be sticky.”

“Make it miraculously not sticky.”

“I’ll know it was sticky. It’s sticky on a spiritual level.”

“Life is suffering, Gabe.” Ze sighed, a deep, soulful sigh that seemed to bubble up from the pits of Hell, carrying with it all the boredom, despair, and frustration of middle-management. “Speaking of, I should get back to work. When the boss is away …”

“The ducks will play,” Gabriel finished, solemnly. Beelzebub stared at him for a minute. 

“That’s not how that phrase goes. Not at all.”

“I could never get the hang of mortal phrases.” He also heaved a sigh, a more ethereal match to Beelzebub’s, warm and worried and, yes, filled with the frustration of middle-management. “You think we should do a little more? We’ve already done this much -”

Beelzebub raised an eyebrow. “In for a penny, eh?” Ze hopped off the wall, and brushed zir jacket sleeves off. “I’m against it.”

“Why?”

The look the Prince of Hell gave Gabriel could have best been described as ‘withering’, although that would not have done it justice. Considering Beelzebub’s astonishing power, crammed as it was into a five-foot-nothing human corporation, there had to be somewhere for the excess energy to vent out. Gabriel had often figured that the vent of choice was condescending facial expressions. “It’s one thing to skirt the rules of whatever Her plan is,” Beelzebub said slowly, as if speaking to a particularly stupid child, “but it’s quite another to go  _ directly against it _ . Trust me. I speak from experience.” Ze waved a hand. “We did our part, gave the kid a heads-up, now we’re out. No interference.”

Gabriel made a face. “Aziraphale and Crowley did it and they’re … not … whatever they are.”

“They went against the Great Plan, which clearly was different from the Ineffable Plan. Did you talk to Raziel about Armageddon beforehand?”

“Not really. Didn’t think there was a need to, since it was written,” he intoned, a little bitterly. “Wonder what he’d  _ actually _ had written for all that.”

“You’ll probably never know.” Beelzebub took a step away from Gabriel. “Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

“Have fun with your sock.”

“I won’t,” he replied, annoyed. He’d been trying not to think about it. “Damn you.”

Beelzebub shot him a very small, nearly imperceptible, smile over zir shoulder. “Already checked off the list, Gabe. See you Sunday. Bring your notes.”

“Yeah, alright.” He watched the Prince go, and then glared at his sock, until it realized the error in its ways and stopped, on the physical level, being sticky. 

It still felt sticky anyway.


	11. The ribs are probably symbolic, or maybe just delicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam lets Lucky in on the secret of their shared pasts. It goes ... fine. I guess.

Adam waited for the server to drop off two sodas and leave with their food orders before he dropped the opener. He’d thought a lot about where to start, while they’d been waiting, and had ultimately concluded that there was nowhere better than the headline. “I’m the Antichrist.”

It didn’t get the reaction he’d been afraid of. In fact, it hardly garnered any reaction at all. Lucky watched him for a long minute, then slowly reached across the table, picked up his soda, and sipped through the straw. He looked pensive. After a while, he swallowed, and said, “Go on.”

A bit taken aback, Adam narrowed his eyes. “Any questions about that?”

“Yes, but I want to hear you out first. I think …” He looked around, and then leaned forward, wove his fingers through his hair, and stared fixedly at the table. “I think this is going to answer a lot of super weird questions I’ve had about my life.”

Adam frowned. “So you don’t think I’m crazy?” It wasn’t a question of validation, for Adam, but of confirmation. Lucky nodded. “You don’t want me to like … prove it, or anything?”

“I mean, the haunted doll was plenty, but like, if you want to get us a free meal and no one has to die or anything …”

Adam shook his head firmly and said, “No, no messing around like that. I don’t do that. I try not to do any of it, anymore. Not unless I really have to. And … and you know, the longer I go without using the powers …”

Lucky nodded. “You don’t use it, you lose it. Yeah, I get it.” He nodded to Adam. “So … explain stuff. Please.”

Adam sighed, folded his hands. “I didn’t know ‘til I was eleven. An’ then it kind of just … happened overnight. My Dog showed up - he’s a hellhound, or he used to be, I dunno if he still is - an’ I thought he was just a regular stray dog. But then I started hearing these voices, tellin’ me to change things an’ take over the world an’ I kind of … lost it? For a little while, anyway.” He stopped to gauge Lucky’s expression, but the other boy just nodded again, encouragingly, urging him on. “An’ then, uh, this is gonna sound crazy, but I guess, um. Well, me an’ my friends met the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse an’ like, defeated them or something, an’ my godfathers were there, plus some other people, Anathema and Madam Tracy and Newt and Mister Shadwell, and I thought I did it? Like told ‘em to stuff the whole Armageddon thing.”

“Uh-huh.” Lucky had gone wide-eyed as Adam had talked, and he took a long sip of soda before Adam continued. 

“But it didn’t really work all the way.” He swallowed. “‘Cause then this angel and this demon showed up - not Aziraphale and Crowley, they were already there, two other ones - to try to convince me to re-start it. I didn’t, obviously. I told ‘em off, and they left and said they’d tell … um. You know.” He paused and then, slowly and deliberately, looked down towards the floor.

Lucky nodded. “Lucifer, right? And also, just to uh, be totally clear: Francis and Nanny are an angel and a demon?”

“I guess,” Adam said wretchedly. He groaned. “I mean, yes. Definitely  _ they are _ . Anyway, then  _ he _ \- you know - got angry and was gonna come and tell me off for not starting Armageddon, but Crowley stopped time for a minute -”

Lucky held up a hand. Had Adam not been so focused on getting the entire story out, and the gut-churning anxiety he was feeling about telling someone who  _ hadn’t been there _ about the whole Armageddon business, he would have noticed Lucky’s hand was shaking a little. “Which one is Crowley? I mean, Nanny’s twin or the other one? And also demon or angel, I guess.”

“Your Nanny. I’m pretty sure. But definitely a demon.” Adam nodded slowly, watching the other boy’s face carefully all the time.

Lucky, surprisingly, grinned. “Oh, kick  _ ass _ .”

“Yeah.” Adam paused to gather his thoughts before he went on. Not that he was unhappy, but this  _ wasn’t _ how he’d imagine this conversation would go. Or, at least, Lucky’s reaction. “Anyway, that gave me time to think about what to do, ‘cause at that moment I had literally all the power in the world, an’ so we came back to the present and I told Lucifer to piss off because he wasn’t my dad. An’ then my dad showed up. Uh. My actual, you know, human dad,” he finished, a little lamely. Lucky’s mouth was open.

After a few false starts, the dark-haired boy managed to stammer out, “You told  _ Satan _ to fuck off? Piss off,” he amended. “Actually those words? And you were  _ eleven _ ?”

“Not exactly those words.” Adam sighed and put his face in his hands. “I actually yelled ‘you’re not my dad’ at him like ten times and then he like, dissolved into a cloud.” 

“Woah.” Lucky sat back. “Holy shit. Fuck. I … I dunno what to say. Then what?”

Adam boggled a little, taken off guard. “What? What do you mean,  _ then what _ ?” He shrugged. “I dunno? The world didn’t end?”

Waving a hand at the restaurant around them, Lucky said, “I mean clearly. But like, you gave up that evil stuff and whatever, and then you just … went home? Went back to school?”

Ah, thought Adam, as he considered the question. He’d never really focused much on the afterwards part because it had been so … well, mundane, all things considered. “I got grounded. For being on a restricted military air base and uh, being out when I was supposed to be in bed.”

“You rebel,” said Lucky, faintly. “But … all the weird stuff, it didn’t go away, obviously. Like, you still know Nanny. Or what - Crowley, I guess? Shit, I still call her - him, ugh, what …” He rested his forehead on his hand. “She’s still Nanny.”

“I always knew him as Crowley.” Adam slet his hands fall back to his lap. Cautiously, he took a drink from his soda, taking a minute to glance around the restaurant. Nobody seemed to be paying them any attention, thankfully. “Yeah, after the whole thing I found a paper with his number on it in my jacket pocket. For if I had questions, it said. So I called him up one day and I guess he had handed in his retirement papers to Hell or whatever, I never really found out why he doesn’t work for them anymore, but after that we just … we started meeting like once every month to talk about stuff. And I think he wanted to keep an eye on me, but then like, him an’ Aziraphale - I’m 99% sure that’s Brother Francis - just sort of kept hanging around even when I didn’t have that many questions left an’ … well, you know how it goes.” 

There was a long, pregnant pause, in which both boys sat with their thoughts, staring pensively at their sodas. Eventually, Adam spoke again, a little tired now, with the anxiety of the telling wearing off. “I dunno. They’re cool. An’ I learned at church that back in the day your godparents were supposed to be the ones to teach you about religion so I figured godfathers worked as well as any name for them.”

“I’d say so, yeah.” Lucky shook his head. “Wow. Okay. That explains … like in some ways that explains absolutely nothing, but then in other ways that explains literally everything, so I don’t know how to take it.”

Adam sipped his soda down a little more. “Well, you haven’t called the cops to have me committed to a mental hospital yet, so I’d say you’re doing better than I expected. Not that I’ve ever told anyone who, you know, wasn’t there. I just sort of always assumed that would be the reaction.” That got a laugh. “Right, so that’s sort of the broad overview of my side. Tell me your side. Because uh, I think that’s gonna answer a lot of questions for me, too.”

“It’s not as dramatic.” Lucky paused, looking up toward the ceiling. “Basically, growing up until I was seven I  _ always _ had Brother Francis and Nanny. And they were always like ‘do good unconditionally’ - that was Francis - or ‘crush your enemies to bloody pulp beneath your shoes when you assume your throne’.”

“Nanny, I’m assuming.” Adam nodded, and then smirked. “Which is really funny, actually, if you get to know Crowley, ‘cause - sorry, never mind. Go on.”

Lucky was shaking his head. “No, no, you’re right, because she was mostly all talk. She was actually a super good Nanny. And, like, she was always encouraging me to get into mischief but I think the worst thing we ever did was vandalize museum plaques and cut down literally all the hedges on the property because she said they were pathetic excuses for plants. The rest of the stuff was like, just kind of goofy pranks.”

Adam leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. “Oh, yeah, that’s definitely Crowley.” 

“But she left! Her and Francis.” He looked sad then, and as a basket of dinner rolls arrived he seized one and started ripping it in half, scowling at it the whole time. “When I was seven. Said I was too old to have a Nanny anymore and I’d have tutors or whatever. But I thought I might still see her since she and Francis were always together. But then  _ he _ handed in his resignation the same day.” He sighed and jammed half of the roll into his mouth. “Pfufthed.”

“Uh …”

Lucky swallowed. “It sucked,” he clarified. “Sorry. But she did leave me her email address. So I started writing her then, and I’ve pretty much written her twice a week ever since.” His eyes widened. “Wait a minute, I have her phone number! She just told me never to just call unless there was some kind of dire, Hell-borne emergency, because she doesn’t have good reception, but I can text her and if we want to talk we set up a time. She always calls on my birthday.” He held out a hand. “Lemme see your phone.” 

Adam had already seen where this was headed, and had his phone on the table in a blink. He pulled up Crowley’s contact information, and Lucky pulled up Nanny’s. They checked the numbers once, twice, and three more times, and then Lucky swore. “It really is her!”

“And I’m sure Francis is really Aziraphale.” He crossed his arms and considered the phones. “Wonder if I can convince ‘em to video chat later. I want to ask them about the doll, anyway.”

“Oh, good idea.” He consumed the second half of the dinner roll, and went on. “ _ Anyway _ , so I never actually saw them after that, just talked and wrote and stuff, and I guess my life was like, relatively normal? As much as it could be with my parents, anyway. But then when I was eleven, the other weird thing that happened was the whole trip to Israel.” He shook his head. 

“So my dad gets this memo from the White House, right, that we’re - the whole family - expected  _ right away _ in Tel Megiddo, Israel, for some kind of diplomatic meeting with a field researcher. Or something. Anyway, we all go - me and my parents, plus all the bodyguards - and we met this professor guy there that looked  _ super _ weird. And he  _ stank _ . Like, literally, smelled like a dirty public toilet. And even weirder, he kept asking me about the voices in my head, and the dog, and all this stuff I didn’t understand but he freaked me out so I was trying to play along. But then when I didn’t  _ know the answers _ because I wasn’t you, I guess, he straight up bit his finger off and ran into the avocado grove that was there. And then it exploded.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I thought he died.”

“He was probably a demon.” Adam swallowed. “Did he have a name?”

Lucky thought about it, brow furrowed and then, unexpectedly, he laughed. “Yeah, actually! He said his name was Dr. Hastur La Vista.”

“Oh.” Adam winced. “Hastur.”

“You know him?” 

“Never met him, thank you very much, so not really. But Crowley’s told me about him. He’s a Duke of Hell. I think …” He swallowed. “I think you got really lucky, Lucky.”

The other boy, under his mop of dark hair and his increasingly-shaggy beard, paled. “Duke … of Hell.”

“Yeah.” 

“So what confuses me -” he stopped short, because the waiter arrived with two plates of ribs, which were each deposited in front of the boys. They said their thank yous, smiled politely, and then Lucky lunged forward, stuffing a french fry into his mouth, deadly serious. “ _ How _ did they think I was you?”

_ Uh-oh _ , Adam thought. He’d been hoping to avoid this particular line of questioning. He looked down at his food, and started pulling the ribs apart. “All I know,” he said slowly, “was there was a mistake. The only person supposed to be giving birth that night was your mum, but my mum went into labor early. So they both must have given birth at the same hospital, with the Satanic Nuns.” He leaned in, lowered his voice. “Crowley dropped me off in a basket, and they were supposed to switch me with whichever baby your mom had. But with  _ three _ babies I guess things got mixed up, and I ended up with the wrong family, so to speak.”

Although it was impossible, for a minute, the sound in the restaurant seemed to stop. Lucky blinked and, slowly, set down the french fry he had been holding. “Are you … are you saying my parents aren’t really my parents?” He looked lost, suddenly, eyes wide and shiny. “But … but I look so much like my mom …”

“I don’t know,” Adam replied hurriedly. “I’m sorry. They might be? I don’t know. Sorry. Everything got so mixed-up, I guess, and Crowley assumed they’d got it right and put me with your parents so when they took  _ you _ home they thought you were …” he trailed off. Lucky wasn’t talking, wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at his food, hands limply resting on either side of the plate. “Your parents might be -”

“They’re not,” he snapped, before Adam had a chance to finish. “They - the nuns, Crowley, whoever - might have fucked it up but they wouldn’t have fucked up that bad. They would have swapped me and the baby my mom  _ actually _ had.” His eyes watered. “Shit. Oh, shit.” And then he was crying, tears spilling over and his voice starting to hitch and catch. “ _ Fuck _ .”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said softly, because he was. “I wish it hadn’t happened,” because on some level, he did.

He let the other boy cry, for as long as he needed. No one noticed, and Adam made sure of that, because he felt like he owed it to the other guy to keep him from becoming a barbecue restaurant spectacle in the middle of a breakdown. He picked at his food, just pushing it around the plate - suddenly, he was not very hungry at all - and waited, while around them the diners came and went, their own food got cold, and Lucky kept crying. Occasionally, he would sob out an expletive, and each time Adam found himself nodding along, entirely sympathetically. 

Lucky petered out eventually. Adam hadn’t really kept track of the time. Might have been an hour, might have been less. “I bet your parents are my actual parents,” Lucky said, voice still shaking as he spoke. “That’s what happened. Bet you anything.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably. “Probably.”

“What happened to my mom’s actual baby?”

“I don’t know. He’s … he’s okay,” Adam finished, because he knew that was true, somehow. He’d felt it in his soul back at the airfield, though he hadn’t known what  _ it _ was at the time, and he felt it now, too. In a way, it was a relief to finally be able to label that feeling of ‘ _ okay _ ’. “I just know. I don’t know how, but I know. Magic, probably.”

Lucky took a shaky breath. “My parents … the people that raised me … fuck, even that’s not right, that was always Nanny and Brother Francis.” Another sob broke through. “God damn it. My dad -  _ Thaddeus _ \- always thought I was weird, my mom -  _ Harriet _ \- never wanted anything to do with me if I wasn’t interested in exactly what she wanted to do.” He sniffled. “This whole trip … they don’t give a shit. Oh, they acted like they were worried or whatever, but they haven’t called. Haven’t texted. I think when I’m not home they forget I exist.” He sobbed. “And you talked to your parents. They’re good parents.”

Adam didn’t deny it, just nodded while tears ran down his cheeks. “Yeah. I’m so sorry, Lucky, I’m really sorry, but I … I don’t know what to say.” He sagged, swiped his sleeve across his face. “I can’t fix it anymore.”

Lucky bit back another sob, and took a deep breath. Swallowed. “Can I meet them?”

“My - your parents? Absolutely,” he replied without hesitation. “Whenever you want, any time you want. Any time.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t cry again, at least not audibly. Tears ran down his face for a little while longer. He prodded at his fries. “God, and it was Nanny’s fault … I always thought she loved me.”

“I bet she does.” Adam was surprised with the conviction with which he said it. “You know if Crowley likes you. If Crowley likes you, he … like, okay, he has  _ literally _ run into a burning building at least twice to save someone he likes. And that’s just in the time I’ve known him.”

Lucky laughed wetly at that. “Doesn’t sound like she’s a very good demon.”

“No, he’s a terrible demon. That’s why he retired. Aziraphale’s kind of a shit angel too, to be honest. I think if he had his way he’d be a hermit and live in a hollowed-out mountain full of books. He retired too,” he added. And then, because he felt he had to defend Crowley a little bit, “I don’t think there was much of a choice. I don’t think any of us - definitely not you or me or our parents, or Aziraphale, and I don’t think even Crowley - had much choice.”

“He could have not dropped you off at all,” Lucky challenged. “Just taken you somewhere else and …” he swallowed and looked away.

Adam didn’t need to hear him finish the sentence. “He doesn’t kill kids,” he replied, voice hollow. “It’s kind of one of his things.”

“Wow. He really is a shitty demon.”

“Totally.” He sighed, wrapped his arms around himself, and looked at his food, unseeing. “I’m so sorry, man. Maybe … I probably should have kept all that to myself, huh? I just couldn’t think of how to talk around it ...”

The answer didn’t come right away. It didn’t come after a minute, after Lucky sipped his soda full of melted ice and thought it over. “Well,” he said finally, “no. I think I’m … I’m gonna be glad you did, eventually. I kind of hate you right now, but you were a baby when everything went down initially, and you didn’t know, and then when you did know you told the actual devil to fuck off and stopped the end of the world, so I guess that counts for a lot.” He looked up to the ceiling, his cheeks still shiny with drying tears. “Yeah.”

Adam started to say, “Listen, you don’t -” but Lucky cut him off, before he could formulate the rest of the thought.

“I think we should find the other guy. The third baby.”

Adam blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, I do too. But he is okay.”

Lucky looked at Adam warily. “Yeah. I … believe you. And maybe we don’t tell him. But I just want to make sure.”

Adam nodded fervently, blonde curls bouncing as he did. “I’m in. It’s a deal.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Bet he’s in England.”

“Probably.”

“We can find him.”

“We have to.” Lucky took a deep breath, and then, as if realizing his mostly-untouched food was still there, blinked down at it. “Ugh … I was really looking forward to those.”

“I can warm them up.”

The dark-haired boy glanced at him slightly askance. “You’re not gonna like … start breathing fire or something, are you?”

“No, I can just …” he waved a hand and made a vague noise he’d probably picked up from Crowley at some point. “I can just make them warm again. It’s just a little thing, I can still do those.”

“... Alright. But only ‘cause I’m curious.”

Adam shrugged. “Okay. There you go. Warm and fresh.” And indeed, when Lucky held his hand cautiously over the ribs, they were as warm as they’d been when they first came out of the kitchen, the red ochre-colored sauce glistening and sweet-smelling. 

“Jesus.”

“No I’m like … the exact opposite of him. Supposedly, anyway.”

Lucky stared at him and then laughed again. “Yeah. Right.” He tore a rib from the rack and bit into it. “Ugh, these are  _ good _ . You didn’t do that too, did you?”

“Literally just reheated them. Like an infernal microwave oven.” That did it. Oftentimes, when someone has received terrible news, and they’ve cried over it, or begun to mourn, or even just compartmentalized the whole thing away for the moment, the first even vaguely-funny thing that is said afterwards is like a piece of flotsam big enough to grab during a shipwreck. And like a sailor stranded in a sea of confusing history and misunderstandings, Lucky clutched onto Adam’s bad joke and started to giggle. And then to laugh, hard, leaning forward with his forehead resting on the back of his hand, his hair dropping into his barbecue-sauce-coated fingers. Adam laughed too, mostly at how hard Lucky was laughing, and before they realized it the two of them were cackling like hyenas over a plate of ribs and a newly-discovered bond that had tied them together their whole lives, whether they’d known it or not.

“God, that wasn’t even that funny.” Lucky wiped his eyes. “Oh, man. Oh … God.” He looked up, no longer laughing, but definitely curious. “You don’t think … do you think it was a coincidence, us meeting up like this?”

“It’s ineffable.”

“Definitely un-fuckable, you have that right.”

Adam laughed again, and shook his head. “No, no,  _ ineffable _ . Aziraphale’s always saying that. “Oh, it’s ineffable, God’s plan. Means it can’t be discerned, known, or understood.”

Lucky snorted. “Ain’t that the truth.” 

“Don’t think about it too much,” Adam advised, with all the experience of someone who had been thinking about it off-and-on for the past seven years. “You think about it too much and you get a headache and a panic attack. The way Crowley and the others always sum it up is just like … I dunno, but here I am, and so what am I gonna do about it?”

Lucky gnawed at another rib. “Yeah,” he said, around the bone. “Yeah, you’re right.” He swallowed. “Sorry for falling apart like that, but it was kind of a lot.”

“Do  _ not _ apologize for that.” Adam shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not. And if you want to be cross with me or upset or whatever, do it. You deserve to. It sucks, what happened.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean look at you.” His face softened a little. “Do you know who your mo -”

“ _ Nope _ .” Another firm head shake. “Here I am and so what am I gonna do about it,” he repeated like a mantra. 

“Yeah.” He stared at the ribs. “What  _ are _ we gonna do about it?”

Adam sucked on one of the ribs, savored the sauce, and then shrugged. “Well I think step one: figure out what the doll was about.”

“Okay. Cool, yeah, agreed.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and streaked sauce across his cheek. Adam elected not to say anything. “And then what? Step two: chase more tornadoes? I mean, it’s what we came here for, right?”

Adam felt a little less certain about that. “Yeah. Yeah, it was, I suppose.” 

“I mean, in a way, It feels weird to keep doing whatever I was doing, but then, what else are we gonna do?” Lucky frowned. “But my whole life … Should my life be  _ different _ ?”

Adam finished the rib he was working on, partially because it was  _ really _ good, but also partially because he wanted to be sure that he said the thing he wanted to say next  _ right _ . “Okay.” He set the bone down, and looked at the other boy very seriously. “Don’t take this the wrong way. Because I’m not tryin’ to minimize anything. But … all this new information, right? How much is it gonna change you?  _ Actual _ you, I mean.”

Lucky bristled. “I mean, it’s sure as fuck gonna affect my relationship with my parents.”

“Not what I meant.” Adam shook his head. “You’re right, it absolutely will. An’ that’s gonna take a lot of time, believe me. I’m still …” he sighed. “It’s still weird, even though I’ve known for a long time. It gets less weird, though.” He squared up his shoulders. “But no, what I’m talking about is, does it change the stuff you like to do? Are you gonna like the weather less, is what I’m saying,” he finished lamely, while Lucky stared at him. “‘Cause if the answer is yes, then ...” He trailed off.

“I … argh.” Lucky took a bite of his rib with a little more feral energy than was strictly necessary. “This is heavy shit, man. I dunno.” He swallowed the meat. “How are you so chill about all this? Just had a ton of time to deal with it?”

“Partially.” He elected to withhold the fact that since the doll incident, he had felt the familiar churning of panic and anxiety in his belly. It wouldn’t help. He shrugged. “Also I’ve had like an on-call angel and demon for the past seven years who’ve always been available to talk to me during a personal crisis.” He sighed. “They’re actually super helpful to talk to when you don’t know what to do, because at this point I’m pretty sure they’ve  _ literally _ seen it all.”

“You’re gonna call them tonight, right?” Lucky looked worried again, a little pale. “About the doll?”

“Yeah, at least. And, uh.” Adam thought it over. “I think you should talk to them too. If you want to. I think it’d be good.”

The answer came fast, and Adam suspected Lucky had just been waiting for the offer. “I want to. I really want to.”

“Alright. So amended plan.” He pushed one of the rib bones off to the side of the others as he spoke. “One: call Aziraphale and Crowley and figure out what the doll was about. Two: figure out what we want to do for step two.” He raised his eyebrows. “Sound better?”

“Can I add something before step one?”

“Sure.”

“Step pre-one: finish these ribs because holy shit, man.” He had another, and then said, “Life’s fucked up right now, but at least these are  _ really good _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read about the SECOND time Crowley ran into a burning building to save someone, may I recommend my other fic, [The Starting Hinge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20931122/chapters/49761260), which is not required reading for this one but does occur in the same timeline, which is kind of fun.


	12. In the Weeds (the weeds are feelings)

The boys considered the best way to approach calling Crowley and Aziraphale for a long time before they did it. First, they went back to the hotel room. Then, in awkward silence, they changed into sweatpants, and sat down on Adam’s bed, his phone inert between them. They discussed how to start, what they had each shared with the entities they now knew to be their mutual guardians, and how much said guardians might suspect the two boys would have put together*. They discussed whether or not they should both speak right away, or if Lucky should wait until Adam had a chance to break it gently.

[* _ Almost nothing, Adam asserted with confidence. He assured Lucky that although his childhood memories might portray Brother Francis as the bumbling, oblivious one and Nanny as the sharp, observant one, they were both in fact, actually the bumbling oblivious one _ .]

They talked it over, considered it and then, eventually, they swallowed their nerves and screwed up their courage and decided to call. With a few final muttered agreements, and a solemn nod, Adam tapped the phone, tapped Crowley’s name, and then tapped speakerphone. Lucky, next to him, gulped nervously.

It might have been three in the morning in the South Downs, but Crowley answered on the third ring anyway. “Adam?”

“Hi, Crowley.” Adam realized he was sweating a little, and his t-shirt felt uncomfortably cold against his skin in the overzealous air conditioning of the hotel room. “How’s it going?”

“Not bad. How’s America? Everything alright?” There was an undercurrent of anxiety there, stuffed behind a curtain of casual confidence. Lucky sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and then bit his lip, swallowing any further sounds. Even so, the demon heard it. “Are  _ you _ alright?”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, America’s great. Did you get the videos?”

“We did. Really something, it looks like. How’s it stack up to your expectations? Learning a lot?”

Adam nodded at first, and then remembered they were on the phone. “Loads. It’s really wicked, too … it’s wild, how powerful they are.”

“Told you, didn’t I?”

In spite of himself, he smiled softly before looking up at Lucky. The other boy was cross-legged, his elbows on his knees and his chin nestled in his hands, his dark eyes shiny and wet. He caught Adam looking and smiled too, waving a hand encouragingly. “Yeah,” Adam said with an easy laugh. “Yeah, you did for sure. Hey, is Aziraphale there?”

“Oh, yeah, hang on.” There was the sound of tapping, and then Crowley spoke again, a little more distant this time. “Right, you’re on speaker now. It’s Adam, angel.”

“Hallo, Adam! Staying safe and sound, are you?”

“Yes, yes, promise.”

Adam was too absorbed in his own thoughts, his own tangle of anxieties, to notice that the angel’s usual easy tone was strained and tight. Worried. “To what do we owe the pleasure? Just er, saying hello? Not that we’re not happy to hear from you, of course.”

In the little motel room, the boys shared a look across the phone. Lucky nodded. “Um,” said Adam, before he took a deep breath and squared up his shoulders. “Well, sort of. Actually, I … I actually have a few questions. Some weird stuff has been happening.”

The silence on the other end of the phone spoke volumes. Adam winced. “Where are you?” Aziraphale asked, finally. “I can be there in a moment, Adam, if you need -”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, I don’t … I don’t  _ think _ I need you to come here, anyway. I just have some questions.”

“If you’re sure.” Crowley sounded doubtful. “Really, Aziraphale can be there in a second, and I could -”

“I’m sure,” he cut in firmly. “Really sure. Just some questions.” He didn’t wait for them to respond, and instead blurted out the question at the top of the list: “What was the name of the other kid? The one you thought was the Antichrist?”

This time, the silence  _ stretched _ . It was a long silence, an uncomfortable silence, and Adam stared at the phone, brows knit, while Lucky sat with his chin in his hands, tears in his eyes. He swallowed, looked to Adam, and opened his mouth - this was a bad idea, he was going to say, Adam thought, a really bad idea - but then, softly, Crowley spoke.

For a moment, he sounded Scottish. “Figured it out already, did you?”

Lucky gasped. “ _ Nanny _ .”

“You knew?” Adam boggled. “You … were you gonna just let us like, spend weeks together and not tell us?”

There was a sigh in the background, and Crowley went on, in the same soft, highland voice, “Didn’t take you two very long, did it? We figured you’d get there eventually, when we saw you’d be doing the same program, but I thought we might’ve had a few more days. Hello, Lucky.”

“Hi Nanny.” Lucky was shaking as he leaned over the dark screen of the phone. “This is … weird.”

“Right.” That was Aziraphale in the background, and there was a rustling, like he was moving around. “Where are you? I’ll be there, I’m sure you’re both confused.”

“I can -” Crowley started, but Adam cut him off.

“No, don’t. We’re confused but uh.” He laughed, dry and tired, and rubbed his head a few times, mussing up his already-tousled blonde locks. “Super confused, but I think … I think we’re gonna be alright without you guys in person. I think.” He looked to Lucky for confirmation.

“... Yeah,” Lucky said after a beat. “Yeah, we’re okay. Promise.” He looked to Adam to go on, but instead Adam gestured to the phone, an invitation to Lucky to steer the conversation. “Nanny, Brother Francis … First of all, you didn’t ... it wasn’t me that you were supposed to be raising. I’m not the Antichrist. Uh. You know that, though.”

“Of course, dear. But in the end it wasn’t really relevant, what we were supposed to be doing, was it? What’s important is what  _ happened _ .” It was the first time Adam had ever heard Crowley call someone  _ dear _ , and in that soft voice, it almost made Adam jealous, just for a second, until he remembered that he’d stolen Lucky’s parents,  _ he’d _ stumbled in to the family that was full of love and support, and Lucky had been left with a father that was disappointed in his lack of interest in football or baseball or hunting, and a mother that had treated him like an amiable acquaintance. The least he could have had, Adam thought, was two godparents that watched him, guided him, and by the sounds of it, loved him.

“So you still - I mean, I’m not … you don’t …” he trailed off and made a frustrated little noise through the tears. “I don’t know how to say what I want to say.”

“You are not, never have been, and cannot possibly be a disappointment, if that was it,” said Aziraphale. “You weren’t the antichrist, Lucky, but you were also a wonderful boy in your own right. Still are, for that matter.” 

More quietly, Crowley added, “For all the mess that happened with the whole Armageddon business, Lucky, you were one of the better parts of it.”

Aziraphale was dithering in the background. “Are you  _ sure _ we shouldn’t come over there? Really, it wouldn’t be a lot of trouble, you could always just summon Crowley, he’ll talk you through the circle -”

Adam laughed, as did Lucky, although his was a little weaker, more surprised. “No. No, don’t. Not yet, anyway.”

Crowley heaved a sigh. “Right, you’re gonna have to get some chalk and have a flat surface to work on, preferably at least two feet across, I can fit in smaller but it’s really not pleasant -”

“Are you really a demon, Nanny?” There were tears running down Lucky’s face now, his voice shaking, and Adam clambered off of the bed to retrieve a box of tissues. “Sorry, I didn’t want to start crying again, it’s not about the demon thing, it’s just this has been a … weird day?”

Crowley huffed. “Right, that’s it, I’m coming through. You have this on speaker, I assume?”

“ _ Don’t- _ ” Adam started, but it was too late. There was a curious sound, like satellites screaming, or a million tiny gold-plated circuits howling in surprise, and then there was just Crowley, standing in front of them, a little mussed for apparently crossing the Atlantic through a wifi connection, but mostly just the way he always looked, black and sharp and unspeakably cool. Next to him, Lucky yelped.

Crowley shrugged, a little apologetically. “Yeah. Demon. Sorry, I just thought it might be better to have this conversation in person, ah. You know.” He might have said more, even looked prepared to say more, but Lucky was on him then, arms wrapped around his shoulders and hugging the skinny demon like he may not ever let go. Crowley stiffened up for a second, like Adam knew he always did, before visibly relaxing and pulling the tall boy close, running his hand through his hair. “There, there, dear,” he said, in the same Scottish accent as before.

Lucky sobbed, his face buried against Crowley’s shoulder. “ _ Nanny _ .” His breath hitched, like maybe he wanted to say more, but he wailed instead, biting off and swallowing the sound and holding Crowley tighter still.

Crowley didn’t move, save to rub the kid’s back, but he did look to Adam for a beat. “Aziraphale’s coming too - he’ll be at the door.”

“Got it.” It was a relief to turn away. He liked Lucky - quite a lot, actually, considering their short acquaintance - and felt awful about telling him most of the sordid story and pulling the rug out from under his world. But then a haunted doll had sort of got it all started, and it wouldn’t have been fair to hide all that from him, right? Especially, Adam thought, if it was going to involve elements of … Antichristliness. 

Either way, whether he liked Lucky or not, he felt a little uncomfortable standing there watching him sob, clung to Crowley after years of physical absence. Sure, the motel room was small and it wasn’t as if Adam could go  _ far _ , but he took the excuse and stepped a few feet away, hovering nervously by the door to the room and waiting for the knock.

“I’ve got you, Nanny’s got you, devil. Come on, sit.” That was Crowley in the background, sort of awkwardly inching Lucky toward the bed. 

“ _ I missed you _ .”

Adam swallowed. It was because of him. They’d had to leave Lucky behind because he had been the wrong boy. Because Adam had been the right boy. Because they had needed to keep an eye on  _ him _ , and make sure he didn’t end the world while their backs were turned.  _ I’m sorry _ , Adam wanted to murmur. He wanted so badly to let Lucky know how sorry he was, but he needed this time with Crowley - Nanny, which was weird, and would take some getting used to, certainly - and so Adam stood by to wait for Aziraphale.

As if on cue, the door rattled. Adam yanked it open and Aziraphale stepped in without a word, hands on Adam’s shoulders. “Dear boy…” He glanced at Crowley and Lucky, now side-by-side on the bed, Lucky’s face still against Crowley’s shoulder, his sobs a little more subdued. Aziraphale and Crowley must have exchanged some kind of non-verbal communication then, because Aziraphale nodded and turned his attention back to Adam. “Dear boy, are you alright?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed hard, and realized his eyes were watering. “Kind of. Not really, actually.”

“Then that’s just fine.” And Adam found himself in the arms of an angel, crying and hugging Aziraphale, his hands twisted into the old dun jacket, grounding himself in the feel of the fabric across the shoulders, just slightly threadbare, and the way the angel was warm and soft and familiar. “That’s it, take your time,” Aziraphale soothed, running a hand through Adam’s hair and tugging out an errant knot. 

“Every time I think I’m over it,” Adam forced out, between gasps. “I always … I think I’m past it but then something happens an’ it’s just …” He whimpered. “Should I not have … maybe I should have just not said anything.”

“I’m certain you had a very good reason to do what you did. You said something happened?”

“Yeah.” He took a breath, shuddering and deep, and tried to talk, but Aziraphale shook his head and, with a handkerchief produced out of nowhere, wiped Adam’s face.

“Take your time. No rush, dear boy. Shall we sit down?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Aziraphale tucked him under his shoulder, and Adam leaned into the angel as they walked to the bed, Aziraphale sitting next to Crowley, the pair of them flanked by a couple of eighteen-year-olds that had been unknowingly - until this afternoon, anyway - joined at birth by a set of unbelievable and absurd supernatural circumstances. 

Adam recovered first. He had, after all, had more experience in the absurd than Lucky had. Lucky, who had just discovered that afternoon that ghosts, demons, angels, God, Satan, and Antichrists were also real and, in some cases, more familiar than he might have thought. Lucky, who had just discovered this afternoon that his parents sometimes seemed like strangers because, well, they were, in the sense of genetics, anyway. Lucky, who had for years believed that his beloved childhood nanny and her strange gardener companion were just a weird Satanist and a devout man and not an  _ actual _ supernatural power couple from different sides of the divine aisle.

Granted, the fact that Crowley was a  _ demon  _ didn’t seem to be bothering him too much. Lucky had his arms slung around Crowley’s neck now,  _ still _ crying gently into his shoulder, while Crowley rubbed his back and looked very tired, and a little defeated. 

“I thought I wouldn’t ever see you again in person,” Lucky managed after some length of time - Adam hadn’t really been keeping track, and it wasn’t important, not really. “I thought you were too old to travel, and you never gave out your address, and I just thought …”

“I’m sorry.” Crowley ruffled Lucky’s long hair. “Really, Lucky. Really sorry. If there was a way to be in two places at once …” He trailed off, while Lucky nuzzled into his shoulder, still shaking intermittently with quiet little sobs.

“I’m sorry too,” Adam mumbled.

Aziraphale shook his head. “Why would you be, Adam? All of this is hardly your doing - you’re as much of a victim of circumstance as Lucky.”

“Still can be sorry.”

“I suppose so.” Aziraphale sighed. “I think we all feel rather sorry, really.”

Motel room silence - the silence that has muffled voices in the hall, and air conditioning units buzzing - fell.

“I’m glad you came,” Lucky said into Crowley’s shoulder, after a while. “Even if we said not to.”

“Sometimes kids just need their nannies.” Crowley smirked, looking down at Lucky with a fondness Adam had rarely seen before, and more rarely still towards anyone besides Aziraphale. “Even if they are too tall and have beards.”

Lucky laughed wetly and sat up a little, enough to swipe a tissue across his nose. No one decided to say anything about the tears and snot still left in his beard and mustache. “I could shave it.”

“Why would you, if you like it? Didn’t I teach you to always do what you want? Everyone else can piss off.” Lucky laughed again.

“I don’t think you used those words, exactly.”

Crowley nodded. “In my defense, you were four.” That got another giggle, and this time, when silence settled again over the little motel room it wasn’t quite as thick and tense as it had been. 

“So,” Aziraphale started after another little while, his hand still on Adam’s shoulder, “Would you like to tell us what happened?” He studied Adam’s expression. “Or … would you like to hear about all the things before?”

“I would. The stuff before, I mean. It might help me make sense of what happened today.” Adam looked shyly over. “Not sure if … would you?” Lucky nodded. “Because we don’t have to -”

“I just want to understand a little bit more.” Lucky took a breath. “Even if there’s no good answers, I just want to understand.”

“Very well.” Aziraphale fidgeted a little on the side of the bed, hand coming off of Adam’s shoulder, all the better to fiddle with the sigil ring, which Adam always knew was a tell of discomfort. “Crowley, I believe you were there at the start of it.”

Crowley swallowed and rubbed his free hand on the front of his thigh, nervously. “I want to make something very clear before I tell you both this, alright?” The boys nodded. “I … well, in Hell’s books, this all is my fault.  _ I _ fucked it all up, made all the mistakes at the beginning, and from your point of view, that’s probably going to be true, too. What I  _ should have done _ -”

“Hey Crowley?” Adam cut him off, quiet and calm, eyes still watering just a little, but otherwise as composed as ever. “The world didn’t end, so you can’t have done  _ that much _ wrong, right?” Aziraphale squeezed his shoulder.

“That’s what I’m always telling him.”

Adam swiped his hand across his eyes, drying away the wetness there, even if just for a minute. “Right. So you can talk all about what you should have done, should have known, an’ yeah, maybe it would’ve changed stuff, but then also maybe I would have ended the world and incited the final battle between Heaven and Hell? Which wouldn’t be … ideal.” He waved a hand. “Not that any of this is ideal either but like … Well, I wish Lucky wouldn’t’ve had to be involved, or the other kid, whoever he is, but. You know.” He forced a little laugh. “Could’ve been worse.” He winced. “Sorry, Lucky.”

“Well.” Lucky snorted, swallowed, and shrugged. “I mean. When the alternative is the very real possibility of Armageddon like … yeah. Wish it wasn’t me, I guess, but like in this case we can actually say with confidence that it could’ve been  _ way _ worse.”

“So much worse,” Adam agreed, and Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a relieved glance. “So okay yeah, some really awful stuff happened, but that happens, right? Bad stuff happening is part of the world - I remember I saw that, when everything was going on. And you guys taught me that sometimes when bad stuff happens, the stuff that happens after will turn out okay anyway. In this case I think it … kind of did. Not perfect, but ...”

Lucky nodded. “Yeah. More okay. No Armageddon.” He sighed. “And my parents were - are - kind of jackasses, but like … they did some stuff right too, I guess. Plus I had Nanny and Brother Francis.”

“You can call me Aziraphale now, dear boy.” The angel looked a little bashful. “If you’re comfortable with it. It is … well, it is my name.”

Lucky looked to Crowley, but before he could say anything the demon already answered the question on the tip of his tongue. “Nanny’s just fine. Or Crowley. Whatever. Just not Crawly.” That garnered a strange look, and he patted the boy on the shoulder. “Tell you about it later, sometime.”

“So hang on.” Lucky took a deep breath, and through narrowed eyes peered at the two man-shaped beings. “Actually an angel and a demon?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you just magically come through the phone?”

“I did.”

He frowned, and sighed, and put his head in his hands. Crowley patted him on the back, consoling. Muffled, Lucky went on, “So much makes sense about that, but it’s so weird. I only like, half-believed in ghosts until this afternoon, you know?” He spread his hands. “Now my Nanny’s a phone demon or something, and the gardener was actually an angel the whole time and not just like, a weird monk, and I went to the Middle East when I was eleven because everyone thought I was the Antichrist.”

Crowley bit his lip, shrugged, and sighed. “That’s pretty much it, yeah.”

“You’re not a phone demon,” Aziraphale said reproachfully. “Actually, in the Beginning, he was -” Crowley cut him off with a glare. “Ah. Well. Perhaps later. I suppose it’s not entirely pertinent right now.”

“Tell you later,” Crowley assured Lucky, who was watching him warily. “You sure you want to hear this? Now the secret’s out, not like we’re going to have to stay away anymore.”

Adam found himself nodding. “Yeah, we could wait; I sort of gave you the brief at the restaurant.” He frowned though, because suddenly Lucky was grinning at Crowley from ear-to-ear. “Uh.”

“You can come visit now? Really?”

“I … suppose we could.” Aziraphale looked thoughtful. “I don’t see why not. Before it was all a question of logistics, but now that you’re aware of ah, the particulars, instantaneous travel isn’t entirely unexpected.”

Lucky was hugging Crowley again, and if the demon had actually needed to breathe he might have had a serious problem doing so. As it was, he was looking a little strained, and Adam found himself listening for the crack or pop of a rib, maybe, under the intensity of the other boy’s embrace. “You will, right?” he asked, voice a little thick again. “You will?”

“Of course, devil-child. Ungh.” Lucky loosened up on his grip, and when he sat back he was beaming with a warm, wobbly smile. “Yeah, we’ll visit.” The shifting in accents was a little disconcerting, after all the years Adam had known Crowley to just be … Crowley. He imagined Lucky was having a similar sensation of disorientation, although heading in the opposite direction.

“What prompted all of this?” Aziraphale asked Adam quietly, gesturing vaguely to the four of them, all seated awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “Why don’t you start there, instead? If you both know the generalities of the, ah, beginnings.”

“Might all be a bit much for a day, yeah.” Adam looked to Lucky. The other boy shrugged, trying to put on a brave face, but Adam could tell he was tired - wrung-out, as Adam’s mum would say - with pale skin under the dark beard, and gray circles around his eyes. “You think?”

“I do wanna know. But yeah, maybe another day.” He rubbed his eye with a fist, and yawned. “I guess I sort of have the idea, anyway. But uh I guess the … the catalyst for all this was we saw a ghost or something, today.”

Aziraphale looked to Crowley, and then to Adam, and then back to Lucky. “Go on,” he said, at last. 

“We were touring haunted houses,” Adam explained, while Aziraphale hummed in acknowledgement, urging him to continue, “and looking for ghosts. Which we weren’t finding, ‘cause, you know.”

“Right,” said Aziraphale, and Adam watched Lucky’s expression shift to puzzled in the background. ‘ _ What _ ?’ he mouthed to Crowley, who just shook his head.

“And then we were in this room with a bunch of dolls -” he chose to ignore how Crowley winced, “- and we were just gettin’ ready to leave, but then one of the dolls said ‘Antichrist’.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Ah. Oh, dear.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought*. An’ so we were like, what was that, an’ he started talking to it.” Adam pointed to Lucky.

[* _ Adam had not really thought ‘oh dear’, and had in fact had a great deal of thoughts with more colorful and descriptive language, but he supposed at the end of the day they all sort of boiled down to ‘oh dear’, in their way. _ ]

“It was the dolls,” Lucky clarified. “Like. All the dolls at once, and I asked who was there, and they just said ‘us’.”

Crowley rankled. “Legion. Bet it’s that bastard - goes by Eric, now, I guess. But bet you anything, I thought  _ he’d  _ at least honor the agreements -”

Aziraphale patted Crowley on the shoulder, politely and gently cutting the demon off. “What happened then?”

“Well,” Lucky said with a sigh, “first, we tried to run away. But the door slammed shut and Adam couldn’t get it open.”

“It was like it was stuck or something. It had shut on its own, too.” He shivered a little, and Aziraphale wrapped him in a one-armed hug. “I couldn’t find the knob, or whatever. An’ then the dolls were floating an’ everything, and they said, ‘Beware, Antichrist.’”

“ _ Beware _ ?” Crowley looked surprised, one eyebrow raised incredulously above the rim of his glasses. “Unexpected.”

Adam shrugged. “Dunno. But yeah, they said beware, an’ then they started really freaking out, an’ then they said -” his face creased in puzzlement as he recalled the exact words, “- ‘Beware the Duke, beware the Warrior. You hear us kid? Beware!’” He took a deep breath. “An’ then everything went right back to the way it was before, like nothing happened.” He frowned at Crowley, thoughtful. “Smelled a bit like sulfur, I thought.”

“It did.” Lucky was frowning, too. “And like … fresh paper. Or something like that.”

“Sulfur and fresh paper,” Aziraphale murmured, while Crowley muttered something about the Duke and the Warrior. “Was there … anything else?”

The boys exchanged looks and then, eventually, shrugs. “Don’t think so,” Adam said. “But, uh, yeah, that’s what happened.”

Lucky went on, “So I dunno, I thought maybe the ghost saw into the past or something, I started telling him how you used to call me the Antichrist” He was watching Crowley, and also sparing a few sidelong glances at Aziraphale. “And how you were … well, I thought you were just both sort of weird. But I told him that, and I’d already said something about being born near Tadfield, and I guess he knew enough.”

“Yeah.” Adam shrugged. “From what you guys told me. I kind of figured. And then I thought, well, I wanted to call you two anyway, because  _ ghost _ , an’ Lucky was there for it, an’ there was the whole Antichrist thing and I just thought …” He trailed off, and stared into some middle-distance in the direction of the stucco wall separating the room from the bathroom. “I thought I owed him an explanation. Because I figured things would start getting weird,” he concluded, after a long time.

Lucky laughed. “ _ Start _ ? They’d already  _ started _ getting weird.”

Adam managed a grin. “Well. You know. Weirder.” Then the grin fell from his face, and he turned back to Aziraphale for a moment, and then Crowley. “So what are the Duke and the Warrior? Do you know them? Or of them?”

“The Duke,” Crowley said, leaning back onto his hands, elbows locked, as he stared toward the ceiling, “I’m almost positive is Duke Hastur. Duke of Hell. Used to be my boss, sort of.”

Adam’s eyes widened a little as he drew in a quick breath. They’d talked about Hastur before, at the restaurant, and he hadn’t put it together then. Stupid, he thought, even as a little voice in the back of his head that sounded like Anathema urged him to forgive himself, because sometimes things don’t come as easily when you’re under pressure. “Oh, yeah. That’d make sense.”

“Hastur la Vista?” Lucky balked. “He’s a Duke of Hell? Does this mean he’s like … watching us?”

“Might be.” Crowley scowled. “Who’s the Warrior, though?” He looked to Aziraphale. “Any of your old lot, do you think?” His mouth dropped open. “Not Michael. Couldn’t be Michael. Do you think?”

“Oh good,” Lucky said faintly. “An Archangel.”

Aziraphale had winced as soon as Crowley had suggested it. “It’s probably Michael. And to imagine them in cahoots …”

Adam was looking between them, a little desperate. “Are they after me? I thought after everything at the airfield, it’d be over.” He bit his lip. “It’s not you, is it? You retired, right?”

Crowley hissed uncomfortably before saying, “Eh … in a manner of speaking.”

“You can retire from being an angel? Or a demon?” Lucky asked, wide-eyed with disbelief. “But you came through the phone …”

“I’m still a demon,” Crowley elaborated with a little shrug. “But not working anymore. No more jobs from Hell. Officially.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Get the occasional milk run kind of thing, nothing significant.”

Adam looked to Aziraphale, who also squirmed a little. “I’ve popped in for a few minor blessings for Heaven, as well. You have to understand, after 6000 years -”

Lucky spluttered for a second, before stammering out, “ _ 6000 years _ ?”

“Tell you later,” Crowley replied quickly. “I will, devil-kid, I promise. For now, it’s late, and you two had a big day, and -”

“And an  _ Archangel _ and a  _ Duke of Hell _ might be after me,” Adam said harshly, bristling. “Why? No more, I told them! No more, and here they are, back again! I told them!” He looked afraid then, and searched frantically around the room, as if Michael or Hastur might be lurking behind the reading lamp. “What do they want? I’m not restarting it, I … I can’t restart it!” He waved his hands, and then ran them through his hair. “I can’t do that stuff anymore.”

“Which is why I’m very glad you called us, indeed.” Aziraphale leaned in to Adam, bending forward and twisting until he met the boy’s eyes. “Listen to me, Adam. Whatever they’re doing - and I don’t know yet, what that warning means, what might be happening, but I have every intention of figuring it out - I’m fairly certain it’s not ah, official. So to speak.”

Crowley shook his head. “Definitely not from my side. I can call Zozo or Eric just to make sure, but.” He stopped. “And someone warned you. You said you smelled sulfur?” 

“Yeah.”

“So someone from Hell warned you, for sure. Ghosts don’t smell like sulfur. Don’t smell like anything, really.” He thought for a minute, muttering intermittently to himself as he did. “So Hastur could have gone rogue. Not surprising and hardly like anyone cares, these days.”

“I thought Beelzebub said I was to be left alone.” Adam looked hurt. “You said.”

“Ze did, but ah, ol’ Beelz is a little preoccupied these days.” Adam was watching him, imploring and scared, and Crowley slumped. “I’m not really in the loop anymore, not like I used to be, but you hear rumors. Apparently, no one’s seen Lucifer in at least five years, Adam. Supposedly the Dark Council saw him once, right after everything at the airfield, and then nothing since. You didn’t hear any of this from me, by the way.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Lucky said faintly. “A Duke of Hell is chasing you, and no one’s seen Lucifer, so, you know, actual Satan is out there somewhere, too.”

“Certainly not chasing you,” Crowley hurriedly assured Adam, who suddenly looked on the verge of tears. “You’d know. No, leading theory right now is he fucked off to some other planet or something, which good riddance if you ask me. Either way, no one’s been able to track him down, and they’ve been trying.”

Lucky laughed, a strained, forced little sound that wheezed out of him in a few sharp barks. “So what,” he said, looking to Aziraphale, “Satan’s gone, you’re gonna tell us God’s MIA too?”

This time Adam answered, swallowing the lump in his throat before he started. “Well I don’t think … I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not exactly new. Is it?”

“God is all around us,” Aziraphale responded automatically, while Crowley rolled his eyes. And then the angel looked a little embarrassed. “But ah, you are correct in that no one has … heard from Her … in quite some time.” He concluded, in a very small mutter, “At least a millenia or so.”

“... Oh.” Lucky swayed a little. “This has been a long day.”

Crowley was up then, and tapping Lucky lightly on the cheek. The Scottish accent was back, as well. “You need to sleep. Nothing we’re going to do about any of this in the next few hours. Get ready for bed, on you go.”

As if on autopilot, Lucky rose, and shuffled into the bathroom to wash up. Adam, left alone with his godfathers, looked between them. “So what’re you gonna do?” he demanded. “If you think I’m gonna sleep and you two are gonna go off to talk to your old bosses, then you’re wrong, ‘cause -”

“You  _ are _ going to sleep,” Aziraphale cut in firmly. “And we’re going to stay here all night, and try to puzzle out what on Earth all this is about.” He looked Adam up and down severely. “And if you think you’re going to be finishing your trip on your own, young man, you’re  _ quite _ mistaken.”

Adam blinked for a second before he said, a little numbly, “There’s not room for you in the truck.”

“We’ll rent a car,” Crowley assured him, hands tucked into his pockets. “Go on, get ready for bed. One of us’ll be here, if not both. I’m gonna have to go get a car,” he added, and because Adam was glaring at the floor of the motel room, he didn’t catch the wink Crowley shot Aziraphale over his glasses. “Might be good - could do with a walk, clear my head. Sniff around for anything unusual.”

Adam looked to Aziraphale and suddenly, in spite of growing up and sporting the two-day stubble and the broad shoulders of a grown man, Adam looked very much like the frightened eleven-year-old they had met on the tarmac seven years ago. “What if they come? What if they come and you’re alone?”

“A reasonable concern,” Aziraphale said as he stood and rummaged around in Adam’s duffle bag for a moment before producing a soft pair of tartan pajamas that Adam was certain he had not packed or, in fact, owned when he left England. “But all signs at this stage would seem to imply that if Michael and Hastur are up to something it is not official business. And you may well have someone  _ else _ watching out for you, if the dolls are any sort of indication.” He waved a hand and a similar pair of pajamas - blue, instead of brown, but otherwise the same pattern - appeared on Lucky’s bed. “Although at this stage we don’t know who.”

“We’ll be working on it, though.” The bathroom door opened, and Crowley kept talking as he bundled Lucky over to the bed, shoving the miraculously new pajamas into the boy’s hands. “Get dressed, there you are. You too, Adam. I’ll see what I can dig up while I get the rental car. Maybe call up Zozo.”

“You think they’ll tell the truth?” Aziraphale asked doubtfully, holding his hands out to Adam and helping the boy to his feet. “They are a demon …”

“Eric, then. Eric’s a good egg, more’s the shame. One of ‘em’ll work.” He frowned. “We just need to know if it’s official. If not, it’s Hastur on his own, which isn’t great but it’s not the worst thing. It’ll mean he has to use indirect interference too, which makes it easier for us to re-route things. He won’t be able to just call up a spout of Hellfire or anything.”

“Wonderful,” Adam mumbled. Aziraphale pointed him toward the bathroom door, and he took a few steps, suddenly feeling just how incredibly bone-tired he was. Each step was a labor, and although his brain was racing around, trying to think about what to do, how to deal with this, about Michael and Hastur and Heaven and Hell, his eyelids drooped. He stumbled through his nightly routine, spending a full minute staring blankly at his reflection with his toothbrush in his mouth while his brain kept running in the same circle - Michael, Hastur, beware kid, beware - before he spat the toothpaste foam into the sink, gargled half a cup of water, and stumbled out of the bathroom.

Lucky had laid down, Crowley sitting on the edge of his bed and watching over him, while Aziraphale was holding Adam’s phone, a little nervously. “It went off,” he said, holding the thing out toward the boy as if it might bite. “I didn’t look at the message.” Adam shrugged. Aziraphale probably had looked, he was fairly certain, but the angel was funny about what he did and didn’t want people knowing he’d done, so Adam went along with the charade.

He tapped the screen, read the message, and typed out a single-letter reply: ‘K’. “It’s Rachael, one of our guides. She says we’re s’posed to meet in the lobby tomorrow morning at nine. We aren’t going to be going far - there’s a good system building up over Nebraska that’ll probably do something cool.” He flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling for a minute, hands folded over his belly. After a time, he started fiddling with the button on his new pajamas. “Seems kind of dumb to keep storm chasing, doesn’t it? Maybe I should just go home. I could make something up about a family emergency. Wouldn’t totally be a lie.”

“No, don’t,” Aziraphale admonished. “Adam, you were  _ looking forward to this _ .”

“Before I knew an Archangel and a Duke of Hell were gonna be after me, yeah.” He glanced over to his roommate. “I don’t wanna put anyone in danger.”

“You aren’t.” Crowley was looking at the floor, elbows leaned onto his knees, hands folded. “You’re being a kid that’s doing something they love. Hastur and old wank-wings are the ones putting people in danger.”

Aziraphale frowned, the picture of disapproval, although Adam started laughing as soon as his brain had caught up with his ears and processed ‘wank-wings’. “Crowley, I’m not any more enthusiastic about Michael than you are, but  _ really _ , that nickname.” He sniffed. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Of  _ who _ ?”

“Hm.” Gently, Aziraphale took Adam’s phone and set it on the nightstand. He didn’t bother to plug it in, but it made the little sound it did when it started to charge anyway. “Regardless, Adam, he’s right. Any danger is not your fault. It wouldn’t be fair to you to cut the trip short.” He pulled the covers up to Adam’s nose, practically, and, as respectfully as he could, Adam pushed them back down to his chest again. “Besides, we’re here now. We can be … ah, sort of like … like, er … Help me, dear.”

“Secret agent bodyguards,” Crowley whispered enthusiastically. “Your supernatural secret service.”

Adam giggled. “You make it sound very cool, when you put it like that.”

“Whole point, innit?” The demon shrugged, grinned for a second, and then continued, “Listen, Adam, I -  _ we _ \- don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but we’re gonna work on it, see if we can’t figure it out. If you go back to England, you’ll have the wards we have there to protect you, but whatever those two are up to, it won’t stop that. So you might as well do what you came over here for. Now we’re here, we can run interference while we all figure it out.”

Aziraphale looked mildly excited at the prospect. “One-to-one defense, man-on-ma - oh. Ah. Perhaps angel-on-demon.” He blanched. “That doesn’t sound very good, does it?”

Crowley was downright leering. “Depends on who you’re -”

Adam winced. “Don’t be gross. Secret service agents aren’t gross.”

“You’re eighteen, dear boy, I hardly think two consenting and sentient beings in a respectful and affectionate relatio -”

“Yeah but it’s like watching my parents get all in love,” Adam hissed. “It’s weird. Don’t.”

“You’re going to have to wear sunglasses,” Crowley said suddenly. “Secret service agents wear sunglasses. I have some extra pairs, oh, and maybe a black suit-and-tie…”

“I hardly think that will be necessary.” Aziraphale shook his head. “Although it was a bit sunny earlier today, I suppose.” He looked to Crowley, who was grinning, and coughed. “I don’t know if your sunglasses will match my coat, though, dear.”

“Nothing made after 1900 matches your coat, angel.” Still, he looked pensive. “I could get a selection tonight on my way back with a car. Stop off at some shop, get you some glasses, summon Zozo, be back here in two hours.”

“Perhaps leave the shopping bit out. The sooner you’re back, the better.” 

Crowley looked a little downcast at that, but he stood up anyway. Before he turned to leave, he looked to Adam imperiously. “You’d better be asleep by the time I get back. You’re getting up at eight.”

Adam snorted. “Okay, Mom.” Crowley made a face at him, which he returned, and for a second it was almost like he wasn’t in mortal danger again. Then the demon left, slipping out of the motel room and into the night. Adam rustled around under the covers a little, trying to find a comfortable position in the new silence, the little room filled only with the hum of the air conditioning unit. After a time, he sighed.

“Yes?” Aziraphale looked up from his book - where had he found a book? Oh, it was  _ Meteorology and Severe Weather, Second Ed. _ , out of Lucky’s stuff - and frowned at Adam, radiating concern as well as a soft golden light from his halo. “Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“Dunno how I’m  _ supposed _ to just go to sleep, when someone might be trying to kill me.” He sighed. “I know you’re here, and it’s great, really, and I’m tired, but I just can’t get to sleep.”

“Of course. That’s very reasonable.” He closed the cover of the book, keeping one finger tucked into the pages to mark his place. “I have something that could help, if you’d like.”

Adam shook his head back and forth emphatically. “No. No miracles.”

“That was not what I was going to offer. I know how you feel about miracles in situations like this, Adam.” He rustled his free hand around in a pocket, and produced a little white-and-blue pill bottle. “No, what I do have here is some nice, good, old-fashioned Nytol.”

“Oh.” Adam suspected there might have been some kind of miraculous component behind the appearance of the Nytol, but after years of hanging around Aziraphale and Crowley, he’d learned that most of the time when they pulled something out of the ether, it had existed  _ somewhere _ real previously, and had just happened to get pulled through whatever little hole in space-time angels and demons sent stuff through. Which, somehow, made the Nytol in Aziraphale’s hand alright. “Yeah, I’ll take one.”

“Let me get you a cup of water.”

-

While Aziraphale was putting Adam to bed, Crowley was out for a walk in Kansas City. When the boys had called, he and Aziraphale had parked the 4-Runner in a Wal-Mart parking lot, the better to leave it unharassed until they could get back to it or otherwise sort out what they were going to do next. It wasn’t far, what with their entire goal being keeping an eye on Adam, and so Crowley walked, hands in his pockets, deep in thought, turning over what Adam and Lucky had said about the day.

He wondered if they sold chalk at Wal-Mart, and immediately chided himself for even thinking such a thing. Of course they did. Probably had it next to the rifles, or something. 

So lost in his thoughts was Crowley, that when he walked past a plain brown sedan parked outside of Adam and Lucky’s motel, and he felt a wave of Holy power, he paid it no mind. Probably, his subconscious brain reasoned, just some residual energy leftover from Aziraphale appearing there - it certainly wasn’t enough to be an avenging Archangel or anything else of consequence. It might even have been a human offering up a particularly heartfelt prayer, if they were faithful enough. He brushed the energy off and walked on, past the car, and didn’t notice the thin man dressed in all brown sitting in the driver’s seat, watching him go over the top of his book.

In the car, Raziel made a note in a little spiral notebook he’d set in the center console, smiled, and returned to his reading.


	13. We're on the road to Viridian Ci - no, just kidding we're going to Nebraska.

In actuality, it was 7:30 when the alarm he’d set on his phone started chiming. In the pale light filtering through the motel curtains, Adam yawned, stretched, rubbed his eyes, and suddenly sat bolt upright as the memories of the night before jumped back to the forefront of his consciousness. Wide-eyed, he looked across the room to see Aziraphale, still  _ there _ , seated and reading, although the chair was probably  _ not _ the chair that had come with the room. It was chintz, for a start.

“Good morning, Adam,” the angel said quietly, glancing to the other bed. Lucky was still curled up there, a pillow jammed over his head. “He’s asleep.” Aziraphale was whispering, but a groan from Lucky’s pillow dispelled that particular assumption. Aziraphale smirked. “Well,  _ he  _ is, anyway,” he added, nodding toward the windowsill. 

There, coiled up on the sill in the warm midwestern sunlight, was a black snake. It wasn’t a particularly big snake - Adam had certainly seen the same snake appear much,  _ much _ bigger - but it was large enough that he wouldn’t be easily missed. Adam frowned and, at length, pointed to the snake. “That might freak Lucky out,” he whispered to Aziraphale. “Don’t you think?”

“Ah. Yes. Perhaps. He  _ may _ remember a few occasions from when he was young, but ...” Aziraphale tucked a folded-up square of tissue into the book to mark his place before rising and padding gingerly over to Crowley. Gently, but with no hesitation, he ran a finger down the length of the snake’s exposed back. “Crowley, wake up. You need to be human-shaped.”

Just as the boy beneath the pillow had groaned earlier when stirred from sleep, the snake let out an irritated hiss. Crowley reared his head up out of where he’d tucked it into his coils and fixed Aziraphale with what Adam thought would probably have been a venomous, if sleepy, glare, were snakes more inclined to facial expressions. As it was, Crowley just hissed again, and then sluggishly slithered off the windowsill, flopped onto the cheap motel carpet, and disappeared into the bathroom. 

Lucky sat up then, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning. “Tell me I didn’t just see a snake in our room,” he managed. “S’a dream, right?”

“Uh. Sure,” Adam replied slowly, exchanging desperate looks with Aziraphale. “Hey uh. Morning.”

“Morning. You hear from Rachael or Noel?” Lucky blinked his eyes open, immediately froze in place, and stared at Aziraphale. “Uhm?”

Aziraphale raised his open hands slowly, calming. “It wasn’t any sort of dream, Lucky. It’s alright. It was all real.”

Lucky was quiet for a minute, glancing from Aziraphale to Adam and back, and then forced a strangled-sounding laugh. “Kind of a strong argument against it being ‘all right’ there, Brother Francis. Uh. Sorry. What was your actual name again?”

“Aziraphale.”

“Oh, yeah.” He looked over to Adam, curious and wary, and asked, “So just checking: you really are the actual Antichrist?”

Made sense to get started again there, Adam supposed. “Uh, was, yeah.” He shrugged. “Not really anymore, though. Kind of, I guess.”

“And all that about a Duke of Hell and the  _ Archangel Michael _ -”

From the bathroom, Crowley called, “Wank-wingsss!” before he swung the door open and sauntered around the corner, fully human-shaped and fully-dressed. 

“ _ Nanny _ ,” Lucky sighed. “Ok. It was all real. Ok.” He blanched. “A Duke of Hell is trying to kill us. Also, Hell is real.”

“And Heaven,” Aziraphale said brightly. Adam gave him a look, and his face fell. “Er. Well, it  _ is _ .”

“And you’re an angel, and you’re a demon, and I’m literally the only human here.” Lucky’s hand was shaking, hovering in the air, his index finger still pointed at Crowley, and he swallowed. “Great.”

Crowley spoke, and Adam realized he was starting to like the weird Scottish lilt he took on when he was trying to calm Lucky down. “And we’re here to help. Both of us.” He glanced at Adam over the lenses of his glasses, his eyes still completely yellow from the recent transformation, “Nothing’s going to happen to either of you.” He stood up a bit straighter, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Didn’t you have to be in the lobby at nine? Come on, move along, there’s tornadoes to chase or something.”

“I - wait. What?” Lucky shook his head. “You’re not serious. You can’t be serious. Someone’s trying to kill you.” He whipped around to look at Adam. “Like, supernatural creatures! Trying to kill you!”

“‘ _ Creatures’ _ is a bit insensitive,” Aziraphale muttered.

Adam ignored him. “They’re gonna chase me wherever I go, I think. But I have these two now. Like a … a guardian angel, and a guardian demon. The supernatural secret service.” The light-hearted tone he’d been attempting fell a little flat, with Lucky just staring at him blankly, so instead he swallowed, and looked back to his two godfathers. “Right?”

“But they’re trying to kill you!” Lucky’s dark eyes were wide, his hair falling wildly over and around his face. “There’s an angel and a demon actively trying to murder you. Not you guys,” he added, to appreciative nods from the eldritch duo.

“Oh.” Adam shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “Well, yeah.” He looked to Crowley. “I know what you said, but maybe I  _ should  _ go home, just … I don’t want to put anyone else in danger and -”

Lucky sputtered a bit. “What? No! That’s not what I meant! I mean, what I meant was: Forget storm chasing, you’ve got someone trying to kill you! We’ve got to handle that!”

_ We _ . Adam blinked. “We?”

“Well yeah,” Lucky said, rolling his eyes and, indeed, his entire head. “What, you think I’m gonna just  _ leave _ now? No way. First of all, you’re my friend, so it’s not like I’m about to let you get killed, bodyguards or not. And second of all, I’m in this deep, aren’t I?” He shrugged. “So say you leave, and go back home, and I keep chasing. Where does that leave me? Alone, with Noel and Rachael, and no supernatural anything in the event that just maybe Michael and Hoskins -”

“Hastur,” Crowley snickered.

“- Hastur, whatever, okay. In the event that they decide to come back and  _ tie up _ the loose ends.” He brushed a lock of hair behind his ear and scoffed. “No way, man. I kinda think that right now, in my position? I’m gonna stick with you guys.” He glanced at Crowley and Aziraphale, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Anyway, I had like … Antichrist training for the first eleven years of my life, so it’s not like I don’t know  _ anything _ about all this.”

Adam thought that over. “I … Okay, well, I can’t say I’m not appreciative, but like … this is a little above-and-beyond just chasing tornadoes, and that’s mad enough in its own right.”

“Yeah, it is.” Lucky smiled, easy and wide - if it was forced, it didn’t look it. “But I’m up for it. We can just keep chasing and figure stuff out on the way.” He looked over to Crowley and Aziraphale. “That’s … okay, isn’t it? Nanny?”

Before either Crowley or Aziraphale could answer, Adam cut in. “You have to protect them first. Lucky and Rachael and Noel, I mean. If I’m gonna stay with them, you have to make sure they’re safe. Before me. They didn’t ask for any of this. Promise me.”

“I kind of did,” Lucky pointed out. 

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged a look, just for a second, before Aziraphale answered him. “I … alright. If that’s what you want,” he said slowly. “But ideally it won’t come to that.”

“Yeah, well.” Adam sighed. “Yeah. Ideally. You know how that goes.”

“Don’t we,” Crowley muttered darkly, watching the boys carefully. “Right.  _ Nine _ , they said they wanted you. It’s half eight, get a move on. You have to go to … some cornfield somewhere, I’m sure.” He hopped up to sit on the dresser and slouched back against the wall, waving his hands vaguely at the boys. “Go on.”

Adam and Lucky exchanged a look, just for a second, before they both scrambled out of their beds and toward the bathroom. Adam got there first, and Lucky groaned, slouching up against the doorframe after the door closed with a definitive little snap. He sighed, looked down at himself, and then froze. “I … Where did these pajamas come from?” He picked at the front of the tartan-patterned shirt. “These  _ aren’t _ mine.”

On the dresser, Crowley raised an eyebrow while he looked to Aziraphale, who did not turn around. Instead, the angel cleared his throat. “I … Well, I wasn’t sure  _ what _ you’d packed for pajamas, really. I made do.”

“So these are … miraculous pajamas?”

Crowley snorted and let his head clunk back against the wall. “Miraculous pajamas.”

Behind the bathroom door the sink gurgled into the basin. After a minute, Lucky looked up from his miraculous pajamas. Crowley was still slumped against the wall, expression mostly inscrutable behind the sunglasses, but Aziraphale met his gaze with a hesitant little smile.

A lump suddenly appeared in Lucky’s throat. He forced it down with a hard swallow and opened his mouth, but he choked on the words. Aziraphale’s smile grew gentler, more encouraging, and Lucky said, softly, “I missed you guys.”

“The feeling was extremely mutual,” Aziraphale replied. 

“Why didn’t I …” He scratched the back of his neck. “Until Adam started talking about it yesterday, I forgot so much of it.” He looked up suddenly. “Feathers. Nanny - Crowley? - you had feathers. Wings! I remember that. Now. I didn’t yesterday. Is that you guys? Did you do that?”

“Yes and no.” Crowley shrugged, and made a few noises as he thought it over. “Not  _ intentionally _ . Sort of an automatic thing. We’re supposed to blend in, see, and after 6000 years you just sort of get used to making people forget you. The weirder parts, anyway. That all gets kind of …” he trailed off, waving his hands vaguely and starting a few words before biting them short. His gaze drifted over to Aziraphale, looking for help, but the angel just shrugged. “Right, Forensic Files! You ever watch that show?”

“... Yes?” Lucky said hesitantly, suddenly mindful of the fact that in spite of being his Nanny, this person was also a demon. “Sometimes.”

“It’s like when someone buries a body in concrete -” he started, before Aziraphale cut him off with a shocked word of reproach. Crowley frowned. “It is, a bit. You pour the concrete over ‘til it’s smooth, and you forget anything’s there unless you disturb it later. ‘Course in this case the metaphorical concrete isn’t really intentional, more a combination of the waters of rational consciousness mixing with the aggregate of supernatural fallout, all held together with the … the cement of daily experience which dictates that kind of thing  _ can’t _ be true.” Aziraphale was watching Crowley intently now, and the demon noticed. “What?”

“I never realized how fond you are of metaphors, is all.”

“I’m not, really.”

Lucky cocked his head. “It was a really good metaphor, though. Disturbing but … it explains a lot. Anyway, weird metaphors or not, I’m glad you’re back.” The bathroom door swung open, and Lucky nearly fell in, he had been leaning on it so hard. “Whoa!”

Adam caught him and pushed him back upright. “Sorry! Sorry, didn’t realize you were there. Your turn.” He stepped aside, allowing Lucky past. Once the other boy had gone into the bathroom, Adam went back to the bed, pulling his duffle bag up and starting to dig through, pulling out clothes for the day. “So how are you … going to follow us?” he asked carefully. “Like I don’t think Noel and Rachael will just  _ accept _ that a couple of Brits are going to be following us, and there’s not room in the truck.”

“We’ll be inconspicuous,” Crowley assured him. Adam looked dubious. “What? We can be inconspicuous!”

“I don’t believe you,” the boy replied with a wry smile. “Not really your M.O.”

Aziraphale and Crowley locked eyes, a little exasperated, and then, as one, they shrugged. “In your experience, certainly, I’ll give you that,” Crowley said. “But we’ve both been around. We can manage inconspicuous. ‘Sides,” he added, jerking a thumb toward the window, “I got a really boring-looking car. Just another black American behemoth.”

Adam laughed a little at that while he wriggled into a fresh shirt. “It’s gonna be weird, you not driving the Bentley.”

“Extremely weird,” Crowley agreed. “Super weird. But I wasn’t allowed to bring my car.” This was added sharply, with a pointed look at the angel.

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You’re not  _ miracleing over _ a vintage  _ Bentley _ , Crowley, for the last time.”

“Don’t see why not,” Crowley responded, slouching back further still and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Because we’re trying to avoid doing miracles and drawing attention.” He looked to Adam apologetically. “We’ll be doing things more traditionally when possible.”

“Huh?” Adam shrugged. “That’s fine. I get it - it makes sense. Uh. Could you both like …” He held up his jeans. “Not look? It’s weird.”

Aziraphale turned to face the wall. “Of course.” Crowley slid his glasses down his nose, the better to show that his eyes were firmly closed. 

“So,” Adam said, as he went on changing, “what if I notice something that you can’t? Or like, what if something seems weird? Is there a signal I should use or something?”

“Eh,” Crowley said, drawing it out as he rocked a hand back and forth in a wishy-washy sort of gesture. “You can. Not sure I’d qualify Hastur and Michael as  _ subtle _ , so I doubt there’ll be anything that’ll fit that criteria, but yeah, in the event there is, sure. Just. I dunno. Think of something?”

“Can you whistle very loudly?” Aziraphale suggested. 

Adam shook his head, and then realized neither of them were in a position to see the gesture. “Can’t whistle at all, honestly. I could just yell.”

“Lacks subtlety,” Crowley said. “Then again, no sense being subtle in that case, I suppose. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

“Are you sure that’s sensible?” Aziraphale fidgeted from foot-to-foot nervously. “It may be better to form a plan pre-emptively.”

Adam turned to look at Lucky when the bathroom door clicked open. Bewildered, the dark-haired teen paused. “What’s … happening?” Adam grinned. 

“You guys can look again, by the way. I’m done.” Adam stuffed his new pajamas into his bag and headed for the bathroom to clean up the rest of his things. “Okay, so, we’re gonna meet Rachael and Noel out front. I’m not sure where we’re headed today yet.”

Lucky said to Crowley, “I could text you, if you have service.”

“I get service everywhere. Well, almost everywhere,” Crowley answered, glancing upwards, and then patting his jacket pocket, presumably where his phone was. “Yeah, let me know. We’ll be just behind most of the time, but might as well know where we’re going to end up tonight.” He nudged the back of Aziraphale’s leg with his shoe. “You could research tourist attractions, angel.”

“I doubt we’ll have the time. You boys are busy with all sorts of educational opportunities, I’m sure. And such a lot of  _ driving _ .” He sighed, half-glancing at Crowley with something akin to despair. “At least if you’re following someone you can only go so fast. It’s a blessing, you -  _ don’t _ make that face at me, Crowley.”

“Euch,” the demon said instead, and then he slid to the floor and straightened up with a stretch. “Right. It’s a big, black SUV thing. A 4Runner, I think,” he said, as if he didn’t know and hadn’t memorized the make, model, and year within minutes of getting the car, the better to menace it later. “See you outside, we’ll be right behind you.”

Adam and Lucky watched with no small amount of wonder as Crowley popped open the window to the motel room - which had not, they were sure,  _ had _ a window that could open - and climbed out into the bush beyond, Aziraphale grumbling at Crowley the entire time. When they’d gone and the window closed behind them, the joints that had allowed it to open once again melted away into an immovable sash.

Lucky looked over to Adam. “That’s … something they do?”

“Sort of.” He screwed up his face while he thought. “I never really asked about how their magic works, you know? I have to focus on something to make it happen anymore, but a lot of times things just  _ happen _ around them. I think because they expect them to.” He spared one last look at the window as they stepped out of the room. “That window didn’t have a way to open it, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“But Crowley  _ expects _ it’ll open, and so it does.” He shrugged and then fell quiet for a moment as they walked down the hall. When he started talking again, his voice was hushed. “I mean, you’d never know it, but I’m pretty sure they’re both  _ really _ powerful. Crowley stopped time, once. Just for a little while, and apparently he had to sleep for like a week afterwards, but … yeah. Just stopped it.”

Lucky stopped walking, the better to gape at him. “Stopped time,” he said eventually, in a flat sort of voice. 

“Yeah. During the Apocalypse.” Adam sighed. “It was a weird day.”

“He used to sing me lullabies,” was the only reply Lucky could manage. “Stopped time?”

“Yep.”

“Huh.” After a moment’s thought, he shrugged his bag higher onto his shoulder, and tilted his chin up, grinning. “We’ll be fine.”

-

Per Lucky’s text, the destination for the day was somewhere in Nebraska: There was a large storm gathering and though Noel wasn’t optimistic for tornadic activity, Rachael was confident there would be a fair amount of lightning for study. Crowley and Aziraphale watched from their own vehicle while Rachael and the boys fussed over the recording equipment for a while, before Noel eventually piloted the truck out of the parking lot and onto the road.

Occasionally, Crowley’s phone would ping, and Aziraphale would read whatever text had come through aloud. Updates on the weather, finer points of the destination, and sometimes a question, which Aziraphale would laboriously type out an answer to.

During a lull between messages, while the 4Runner was rolling along a few car lengths behind the red truck, Aziraphale spoke. “I think Lucky took everything very well, don’t you?”

Crowley made a face, uncertain. “For now. I’d imagine it’s not all sunk in quite yet.”

“What do you think the odds are,” Aziraphale went on after a pause, “of Adam and Lucky meeting like this?”

“Astronomical,” Crowley answered without a thought. “ _ Beyond _ astronomical.” The radio hummed the opening bars of a new song, something twangy and country-western, and Crowley made a face. “Try again,” he grumbled to the car. The radio skipped, scrambled through a few more stations, and settled on ‘A Pirate Looks at Forty’. Crowley huffed. “Not the worst one you’ve picked,” he conceded, and the song continued.

“It’s ineffable,” Aziraphale concluded during the first refrain of the chorus, looking out of the window while the cornfields whipped by. The skies were clear and blue, but heavy white clouds were gathering in the distance. “You know, Crowley, I’ve been thinking about their guides.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow, fidgeting back in the seat a little. “What about them? We can keep them safe, just miracle them away if we have to -”

“Not that.” He frowned. “Not that I’ve sensed anything, but do you think they’re … human?” That took Crowley by surprise. The demon’s eyebrows shot up, and suddenly he hit the accelerator, weaving in and out of cars to catch up to the truck ahead. Aziraphale grabbed at the door handle, stiffening up in his seat. “Crowley! I said I didn’t sense anything!”

“I heard you.” Crowley swung their car in behind the truck, and took a few slow breaths, studying the truck ahead. “And I don’t either … right now. But last night -” Aziraphale whimpered as the truck braked, and Crowley abruptly slowed with it, “- there was something. In the parking lot. I thought it was you.”

Aziraphale looked over. “An angel?” Crowley nodded. Aziraphale looked back forward, licking his lips. “It does seem a bit … convenient. And their names - did you notice? Racha- _ el _ , No- _ el _ .”

“Yeah. I hadn’t noticed, not until just now.” He grimaced. “Can’t be, can they?” 

They were quiet for a moment, focused intently on the truck ahead. There was Adam’s energy, and Lucky’s, plainly recognizable. And then in the front seat of course there were two signatures, but in spite of both of their concentrated efforts, they didn’t detect anything in the truck besides humans. Still …

“But you know now that you’ve mentioned it, I think I see your point.” Aziraphale said with a frown. “There is a hint of  _ something  _ angelic. It’s very faint. Certainly not coming from ahead.”

“And it’s not you?”

“Definitely not me.” He looked over to Crowley, and winced when the demon looked back at him. “Watch the road, please. It’s  _ very _ faint.”

“But it’s  _ there _ .” Crowley scoffed. “That doesn’t bother you?”

Aziraphale scowled. “It bothers me tremendously, actually. But it’s not strong enough for me to  _ do _ anything about it.” He glanced up. “I wonder if it’s from Above.”

“Nah,” Crowley said, shaking his head. “Even during Armageddon I didn’t sense anything like this, and I  _ know _ they were watching then. No. Someone’s down here with us. Watching.”

“They must not be particularly powerful, if they’re close enough to watch but their signature is so faint.”

Crowley hummed, indecisive. “Maybe not, but they don’t necessarily need to be, do they? If they’re reporting back to The Warrior, they just have to be loyal, is all. Let them know about Adam’s movements and then Michael can come in when the timing’s good.”

Aziraphale’s brow knit. “Yes. Yes, I’m afraid that might be the case. We shall have to stay at attention.”

“You don’t have any contacts in Heaven you can check with?” Crowley had backed off of the truck, falling back in a few more cars behind, but the signal from the as-of-yet unidentified angel didn’t grow any stronger. “A putto or something?”

“Afraid not. I wasn’t as social with my coworkers as you were, my dear.” He shot an amused glance to Crowley. “I’m still surprised by how  _ outgoing _ demons are.”

Crowley smiled a little. “I don’t think it’s that demons are necessarily more social than angels, angel. I just think you’re a bit of a recluse.”

“Nonsense; I’m very social when I want to be.”

“Which is, what, every forty or fifty years?” He tossed his head, flicking a lock of red hair out of his eyes. “Present company excepted, of course.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “Always the exception, aren’t you? Oh!” He looked down to the phone in his lap as it pinged. “A message. Let’s see - it’s from Lucky. They’re stopping for lunch in a few minutes. At a chain restaurant, I think - Red Robin?”

“Burgers.” Crowley made a face. “Not much for healthy eating on this trip, are they?”

“Or good eating,” Aziraphale agreed, passing the phone to Crowley. “Still, it will give us a chance to summon up your friend, yes?”

“‘ _ Friend _ ’ is a strong word. But yes. If we can find somewhere out-of-sight enough but still in sight of the restaurant, we’ll call him up.” He grumbled a little, unintelligibly, and then said, louder, “Shame Zozo isn’t more familiar with whatever’s going on in Hell these days.” He flashed a quick glance at Aziraphale. “You’ll stay back, alright? Keep an eye on Adam and Lucky. I’ll handle Eric.”

“Crowley, I’m more than capable of handling myself.”

“I know, angel, but during the trial? He wanted to punch you. I told you that, remember?” The car slowed as they pulled off the highway, Crowley following the red truck at a distance into the parking lot of the burger chain. “I just don’t like the idea of him seeing you again.” Aziraphale made a little noise of affection, and Crowley didn’t twitch or flinch when he felt the warmth of Aziraphale’s hand on his arm. “Don’t say a word.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Just a reminder.”

Crowley guided the 4Runner into a space off to the side of the lot, half-hidden by the other cars and a little hillock designed to conceal the dumpster. He intentionally didn’t pull the truck the entire way into the space, leaving a couple of feet in front of the grill that would be well-secluded by the landscape and the other cars. “Can you see them?” he asked, reaching into the center console and producing the box of chalk he’d swiped from Wal-Mart the night before. 

“I can, yes. If I stand behind the car, I can see even better.” He held out his hand. “Hand me your phone.”

“What?” The demon paused, already halfway out of the door. “Why?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “So I can look like I’m doing something to the other humans. I could just try that game … the one with the food you like to play? With the young lady?”

“ _ Delicious _ ?” Crowley said, agog, before he blushed. “Not that I play it much. Um. Yeah, good idea, angel.” He handed his phone over and scrambled out of the car. “I’ll be up here … summoning a demon. Yell if you need me.”

Aziraphale did not yell, although Crowley heard him close the door and walk toward the back of the SUV. Crowley waited a few minutes, eyes closed, leaned against the grille of the car, before he blindly wrestled a stick of chalk out of the pack and tucked the package back away in his coat.

Summoning a demon wasn’t difficult if you knew the trick to it, and it was even less so for a fellow demon that had been on both sides of summoning in the past. The circle itself was a basic thing, universally applicable to all lesser demons, but the sigils  _ around _ that were unique to the demon you desired to summon. One error, one missed rune, and either the entire thing wouldn’t work, or you’d end up on the wrong end of an angry demon.

Luckily, Crowley was not inclined to make a mistake. With the basic circle done, he closed his eyes, and let part of his consciousness float into the files of Hell, carefully side-stepping around Dagon’s watchful eyes. Eric’s sigils came to him in a second, and he yanked that part of himself back out of Hell, eyes opening in the bright mid-day light. Expression grim, he set to work.

His head ached from the effort of keeping his eyes focused on the writing by the time he was done, and his lower back wasn’t exactly thrilled with the last twenty minutes of skipping around hunched over to draw on the pavement, but it was a very minor miracle to rid himself of those things, straightening up and standing at the edge of the circle. He propped a hand on his hip, tossing the now-worn stick of chalk up and down with his other hand, and spat a series of harsh syllables that were heavily overlaid by hissing. 

Eric hadn’t changed much since Crowley-as-Aziraphale had last seen him. The intervening seven years had apparently only managed to alter his sense of color theory, and he had adopted a few more shades of gray than last Crowley had seen. The look of utter terror was new too, although Crowley couldn’t say he blamed the guy.

“Demon Crowley!” Eric bowed low, his voice cracking as he said, “I’m at your service. Why have you summoned me, O Illustrious Serpent?”

Crowley glanced around, mildly embarrassed. “You can cut it with all the formalities, Eric. I have some questions.”

“Anything, Demon Cr -”

“Terms,” Crowley said sharply, cutting him off. “Here’s an offering.” He waved a hand and was suddenly holding two more items lifted from the Wal-Mart at the other demon: a 6-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a jar of sweet pickles. “Deal’s a deal, eh?”

Eric forced a nervous laugh. “Not necessary, Demon -”

“For this offering, I ask you for knowledge, and for your silence regarding this meeting,” Crowley said. “I, Demon Crowley, give you this shite beer and some pickles, as well as your continued freedom after our parley, for fulfilling these requests.”

Eric watched him warily. “You could have just called me.”

“Well, not that I don’t trust you, Eric, but I  _ really _ don’t trust you.” He shook the pickle jar. “Deal or no deal?”

“Deal.” Eric held out a hand. “I’ll take a beer - have a feeling I’m gonna need one. Where is this?” He looked around, while Crowley pulled a can of PBR from the pack and tossed it into the circle. Eric caught it, hardly paying attention, and cracked the top open. “Are we in America?”

“We are in America,” Crowley confirmed. 

“Bit far from your usual haunt, isn’t it?” He took a swig of beer and made a face. “That’s the good stuff.”

“No accounting for taste,” Crowley muttered, before he cleared his throat and said, brusque, “Alright, I’m asking the questions now.” He straightened up. “What’s going on in Hell?”

Eric frowned, brow furrowed. “The usual, I think? Nothing going on that they’ve told me about. Not that I find out about much.”

“Haven’t dispatched you back to Megiddo?”

Eric blinked in surprise. “What?” The other demon started to laugh. “What, like they’re gonna re-start the Apocalypse again? Nah. Business as usual down there.”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses and he started to, slowly, stalk around the outside of the circle. Nervously, Eric shifted onto his heels and moved away from the other demon, his back bumping up against the invisible barrier formed by the summoning circle. “Is it?” Crowley asked, voice low. 

Eric nodded, a bit frantic. “It is, Demon Crowley, I promise. I’m not lying, wouldn’t lie. Not to you, Your Disgr - Sir.” He clutched his beer can closer to his chest. “Far as I’ve heard, no one’s making any more moves toward Armageddon. Beelzebub has enough to do keeping things in line with the Boss gone, anyway. Er. So goes the rumor. Haven’t actually seen zir since … uh. Since you have, last.”

Crowley didn’t respond to that, but was relieved to hear it; it tracked with the meager information he knew, anyway. He didn’t nod, either, and instead asked, “What about Hastur?”

“Duke Hastur?” Eric went pale, took a deep breath, and a sip of beer. “Haven’t seen him lately.”

“How lately is lately?”

Eric considered that. “Well, um, you know how time goes down there but …” His brow furrowed. “Last I saw Duke Hastur it was … maybe four or five months ago? He discorporated me.”

“Yeah.” Crowley licked his lips. “Sounds about right. What’s he up to?” The last bit was said quietly, intended to be rhetorical as he circled the sigils, but Eric was watching him. His lips moved as he thought, dark eyes watching Crowley, and then he spoke suddenly, hurriedly, like water bursting from behind a dam.

“He’s been talking to Michael!” He winced and looked away quickly as Crowley snapped his head around to face him, shoulders hunched, ready to pounce. “I heard him on the phone. They were going to meet. I don’t know what about.” Crowley watched him for a long moment, and even the sound of passing traffic seemed muffled for that time, before Eric went on. “He didn’t know I was listening in. It was the last time I saw him - in his office. It’s why he discorporated me.” He swallowed hard, and took a few more sips of beer to steady himself. “I don’t think Beelzebub knew. He told me not to say anything. To anybody.”

“Didn’t bind you to it though, did he?” Crowley murmured, looking away and staring off toward the parking lot, reassuring himself by studying the camel-colored blur of Aziraphale’s coat. 

Eric huffed out a frail, forced laugh. “No. You’re smarter than he is, though, sir, if I say so -”

Crowley whirled back to glare at him and snapped, “Don’t. You’re a bloody coward, don’t act brave now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were they talking about? What did you hear?”

“Not much,” Eric admitted. “I heard him say ‘Michael’ and talk about a meeting. Just said he wanted to meet with them and talk about Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?” Eric shrugged. Crowley hissed. 

“I  _ don’t _ , sir, honestly, I truly don’t. I just know he hasn’t been around much since then - I’ve not seen him, anyhow.”

Crowley glared at him over the rims of his glasses, yellow eyes narrow and sharp. “I don’t trust you.”

Eric looked taken aback at that. “Course not, sir. Be a funny old world if demons went around trusting each other, wouldn’t it?” And then he yelped, because Crowley snarled and lunged toward the edge of the circle. “Sorry! Sorry, please, don’t …”

“It would be,” Crowley hissed, “but you can trust this: if I find out you so much as hint a word of this, no matter how obtuse, I  _ will _ make sure you don’t break another deal.”

“Understood,” Eric whimpered. He glanced toward the car, toward Aziraphale, and whimpered again. “No need for any … any plant sprayers, or buckets or anything.” Crowley glared at him for a few more seconds, just for good measure, and then straightened up, taking a step backwards, away from the circle.

“Catch.” He threw the jar of pickles, and tried not to look too disappointed when Eric failed to drop them. He swung the remainder of the pack of beer to the lesser demon as well, which Eric caught with a practiced scooping motion, before tucking it under one arm. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

Eric looked around, a deer in the headlights, and started to blurt out, “I’m sorry about what happened when I was up in Heaven, sure you heard about it, I shouldn’t have -”

“Goodbye, Eric,” Crowley snapped, before hissing out a few words in a language that wasn’t so much dead, as it had never really been alive to start with. Eric faded, and Crowley quickly snapped his fingers, calling forth a bubble of foul-smelling muddy liquid to splash down over the chalk circle and smudge the thing into uselessness. He stood there, staring at the mud puddle which was, slowly, eating away at the pavement below, before he waved his hand, banished the liquid back to wherever it had come from, and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Aziraphale looked up when he stepped around the back of the car. Neither of them said anything right away, although Aziraphale handed the phone back - it was open to the calculator application, and Crowley  _ sincerely _ hoped that wasn’t what he had been playing with. 

“They’re working together,” Crowley said at last, leaned up against the back of the car. “Hastur and Michael. He didn’t know any more than that.”

“Together?” The angel started to wring his hands. “That does make sense. I’d hoped it wasn’t the case, of course. That’s … going to be difficult.”

“It’s not ideal,” Crowley agreed with a sigh. He took his glasses off, squinting against the harsh sunlight, and cleaned the lenses with his T-shirt. “It’d be a lot easier if they weren’t talking to one another.”

For a time, the only sound was the cars whirring by on the road. “Did he say why? Did he know?”

Crowley huffed, leaning back against the car, arms crossed over his chest. “Not really. He did say Hastur’s keeping it quiet. Which is good news for us, I’d imagine,” he added, and Aziraphale’s facial expression shifted from disappointed to confused. “Eric isn’t exactly a high-ranking demon, but he’s  _ everywhere _ . Case in point, right? And he said he hasn’t seen Beelzebub hanging around either, which likely means ze’s not involved.”

“So it’s not, ah, an organizational policy then?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Aziraphale thought about that for another little while, hands folded behind the small of his back, eyes cast upwards toward the fluffy white clouds. “Well, that  _ is _ a blessing. I wonder if it’s the same for Up There …” He squinted at the clouds. “I can’t imagine Michael working with  _ Hastur _ , though. Hastur was always calling Michael the … that same terrible name you use for Michael.” He shot an accusatory look toward Crowley. “Honestly.”

“I started it,” Crowley stated, without an ounce of shame. “Hastur stole it from me. Was my idea all along.”

“ _ Crowley _ .”

“Back in, oh, maybe fourth century? BC, that is. I think. Can’t really remember. Anyway, either way, I know they probably hate each other  _ but _ if they’re both spoiling for a fight, then they have common ground, yeah? Politics makes strange bedfellows, so the saying goes.”

Aziraphale’s mouth twisted unhappily. “True indeed. I suppose it’s a relief that Hell as a whole isn’t involved, but I’m not sure I can say the same for …” he trailed off and continued to look up. “Gabriel is, after all, Gabriel. The Archangels have historically always functioned as a unit, regardless of personal opinions. Always in pursuit of the Great Plan, of course, so without that I’m not sure, but, well.” He scowled. “Blast.”

Crowley sighed and patted Aziraphale on the shoulder. “Yeah. Really would make it easier if there were someone you could talk to, huh?”

“That’s just the trouble: there  _ is _ . And I  _ very _ much dislike talking to him.” He sniffed with a heavy overtone of disdain. “But he still contacts Heaven regularly, last I heard, and he’s … a bit of a free agent. Not to the same degree as I am, of course.” He looked to Crowley, and a little curl of amusement crossed his face. “A bit like Zozo, I suppose, but without the Ouija boards and, I think, more communication with Head Office.”

Crowley nodded. “Great - how do we get ahold of him?”

“That’s just the trouble,” Aziraphale said, “I’m not sure. I don’t know his sigils, and without my books here I’ll never remember them.”

Crowley rolled a shoulder in half of a shrug. “You could fly home and get the ones you need. We’ve got room in the car. I’ll handle this until you’re back.”

“That won’t be necessary, I don’t think. I have … a bit of an idea. Perhaps unorthodox, but -”

“Angel, those words are music to my ears.” He put his arm around Azirpahale’s shoulders and ran a skinny finger along the front of his waistcoat. “Tell me about your unorthodox plan, then.”

Aziraphale looked worried, biting at his lip a little as he studied Crowley’s face. For his part, the demon looked nothing if not interested, one eyebrow raised and, although his eyes were mostly hidden by his glasses, it was a sunny enough day that this close, the interest in them was apparent. “Yes, alright,” the angel groaned. “But promise you won’t laugh.”

“I’d never.”

“You would, but I think in this case you’ll approve. First, we need to wait for the thunderstorms -”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the bonus chapter this week! I'm hoping to keep up with twice-weekly updates now that the writing of the story is finished and I'm just editing, but life gets busy, you know how it is. Definitely will continue Sunday updates, and will do Wednesdays as I'm able from here on out!


	14. An All-American Angel

The storms came later in the day, when the cheeseburgers of lunch were nearly forgotten. The clouds gathered in the skies over Nebraska; at the first severe weather warning, Lucky and Adam pulled the laptop into the back seat at Rachael’s urging, and set to studying the radar patterns together. Occasionally either one would point at something or other, or mutter about wind shear and relative atmospheric pressure. Above, the towering white clouds grew darker, steely-gray and brooding. In the front seat, Noel leaned back in the driver’s seat, snacking on a stick of jerky, while Rachael rested her face against the window, eyes on the sky. “So?” she asked after a while. “What’s the verdict back there, do you think?”

“It doesn’t look tornadic,” Lucky said, and Adam nodded in agreement. “I dunno, I’m not seeing enough instability coming from these two fronts.”

Rachael turned around, the better to grin at them. “I agree. But it certainly looks like a storm’s shaping up out there, hm?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah. I mean, there’s still a big cold front moving down from the north, and this chunk -” he waved his finger at the screen, “- coming from the Gulf of Mexico has been carrying really high humidity the entire time, so there’s plenty of moisture.”

“Which means?”

Lucky grinned. “Lightning.”

“ _ Lightning _ ,” Rachael agreed. “And?”

“Hail,” said Adam.

Noel grumbled, “Yeah. Hopefully not big stuff today. Windshield’s already got a little crack in it - not sure how many more hits it can take before we need to swap it out.”

Rachael shrugged. “We’ll see. Okay so, where do you guys think we ought to move to get the best lightning data?”

Adam and Lucky looked around the truck.Noel had pulled to the side of the road in the little village of Cedar Bluffs. Around the truck, small houses squatted on the prairie, surrounded by miles of farms stretching out in all directions. “Well,” Adam said, half-joking, “probably not right here.”

“Good call,” Lucky said with a snort. He had turned the laptop to face himself, and was studying the screen. “I dunno I think … well, we probably wanna find somewhere without much around, right? How about northwest?” He looked up, in the direction he was indicating. “Looks like mostly farms out that way, right? And I think it’s going to be as active there as anywhere else.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Rachael reached into the back seat and Lucky handed the laptop over. “Good job, guys. You’ll be regular meteorological pros by the time we’re done with you. Okay, Noel? You heard the boss: let’s drive.”

“We should do a timed competition with the set-up, now,” Noel said conversationally as he drove the truck onto the road and pointed it out of town. “You guys are comfortable enough with it, yeah?”

The boys looked to one another and shrugged. “Pretty comfortable,” Adam conceded. “I dunno that we’re  _ that _ comfortable.”

“And I’d rather it be done right, yeah.” Rachael grinned at her companion. “But if you wanna time it, go for it. Even without racing, we can see how much faster you guys get over the next couple weeks.”

“Yeah, alright.” Adam looked out of the window as the town rapidly fell behind them and crop fields started to yawn out on either side, green from the roadside to the horizon. Quickly, he glanced to the side mirror, and was reassured to see the now-familiar grill of the big, black SUV following at some distance behind. When he looked away, Lucky caught his eye, and he just nodded once, wordlessly. The other boy slouched back a little more comfortably.

Rachael, meanwhile, was fiddling with cameras. “Alright … I think I’m gonna shoot with the long lens today, for the most part, but in case we get more underneath it than we’d like - which one of you wants to do the short lens? I can trade you if it’s really on top of us.”

Lucky raised his hand. “I’ll take it.” He grunted a little as Rachael passed the heavy bag back to him. “Do I need to do anything?”

“No, it should be ready. So Adam, that means you’re on video. Is that okay?” He voiced his agreement, and Rachael nodded, satisfied. She turned back, looking over her shoulder to grin at the two of them. “Alright, guys. Fingers crossed let’s see some lightning, hm?”

They wasted no time setting up once Noel found a suitable place along a side road to pull over. The clouds were gathering, thick and full in the sky above, and dark as soot. Noel timed the students while Adam and Lucky ran around like men possessed, darting from one instrument to the next, ensuring they were secured and operational before jogging back to stand next to the car and wait.

“Not bad,” Noel appraised, glancing at his phone. “You’ll get better."

“What was it?” asked Lucky, panting, hands on his hips.

“Twelve minutes and change. It can be done in eight, if you book it. But you’re learning. You’ll get there.”

The boys exchanged a determined sort of look. “Eight minutes,” Adam repeated. “We got that.”

“As long as it’s done right,” Rachael reminded them from behind the lens of her camera, already shooting the strikes that were still a mile or more away. “I don’t care if it takes twenty minutes. I need the data; your set-up times aren’t publishable, unfortunately.”

Noel looked mischievously at the two students. “Nice not to waste time with it, though.” 

“We can do it.” Lucky and Adam high-fived, the taller boy stinging Adam’s palm with the force of his blow. “We’ll get there. Hang on, I’m gonna get the camera. You’re already set up, Adam?”

“Yeah.” Eyes narrowed and blonde hair blowing in the wind, Adam watched as the first bolts started to reach for the ground, closer now. Thunder rumbled distantly. “Over near the front of the truck. I’m gonna head over now, I think? Will the picture be any good this far away?"

“Eh.” Rachael shrugged, and snapped another rapid-fire burst of photos as the first bolt they’d seen connect with the Earth flared to life. “Maybe not, but might as well - we have plenty of space for the videos, and I can always pare them down later if it ends up being a wash.”

Adam hummed his agreement, and headed toward the video camera, probably a hundred yards down from the truck. He fiddled around with a few of the settings before deciding the zoom was as good as it was going to get, and settled in. The thunder was quite loud by now, drumming through the air around him as well as the clouds overhead, making the bones of his ribcage rattle with each roll. The air cooled, started to feel damp, and gooseflesh erupted on his arms. He sucked in a deep breath, watching through the viewfinder as the bulk of the cell drew closer, and tasted the storm on his tongue.

Not a tornado, he thought, but a big storm. He’d seen the radar and here, on a cracked old road in the middle of a cornfield, he could feel it too. As the first few drops of rain began to spit down, Adam shifted the camera around gently to an area that looked to be generating the most lightning, and did his best to get as much of the storm in frame as he could.

At first, it looked decent, although Adam wondered if they’d missed the mark a little in their lightning instrument setup: most of the strikes were occurring to the south, rather than the north. Cedar Bluffs might yet have been the right place to stay, right there on the main street: not like it was a metropolis or anything. Still, he considered, with all the buildings around it would have been more likely that the lightning would have hit a proper structure, rather than the metal antennas that were attached to Rachael’s instruments, which - out here - were almost the tallest thing around for the next half mile.

But the direction of the storm changed. It was slight at first: just a few bolts a bit closer, a bit nearer to the truck and the instruments. Adam grinned as he looked through the camera, alternating between checking his shots and watching with his own eyes. Although he’d come out here to see tornadoes, he had to admit that lightning was pretty incredible: beautiful, powerful, and unpredictable. Not well-understood, either, although Rachael had already taught him miles more than he’d known when he first arrived. He was appreciating it now, adjusting the shutter speed a little to see if he could catch more of the discrete flashes - negative strikes, fast and repetitive - rather than the more easily-filmed single strokes of a positive bolt. When a weak upward leader climbed up off of a power transmission tower, he breathed out sharply, awed, and hoped it hadn’t been so fast that the camera had missed it; the actual bolt struck a half-second later, arcing down through the sky and searing into the cornfield.

“That’s what I’m looking for!” he heard Rachael whoop from the truck, joined by a happy shout of laughter from Noel. “Let’s keep ‘em coming!”

There were a few more bolts after that that were just as spectacular: it was a very active storm, and try as he might he couldn’t catch all of them on film. He did his best though, which was why when the first unusual bolt struck, he saw it. 

It was off by itself. The storm was quite close now, still not raining where they were but looking as though it might do soon enough. The sky was dark, and the clouds flashed and rolled just to their south. The lightning wasn’t quite to the line he and Lucky had arbitrarily set at the border of the irrigation ditch with the instruments, but it was looking like it might make it there eventually after all. He was panning slowly along the cornfield, hoping to catch another leader or something similar, when the odd bolt struck.

The first thing Adam noticed was that it was slower than the others before - almost like a positive strike, strong and deliberate, but achingly slow even for that. The second thing was that it hardly forked at all, instead only zig-zagging a little as it seemed to search for something on the ground, before flaring to life and cracking through the sky to strike an electric transmission tower not a hundred feet down the road from his position. The tower screamed, electricity arced, and one of the fuses blew with a shower of sparks. Rachael yelled. “Shit! Did you see that?”

Adam swallowed. “Should we get into the truck?” he called, still looking fixedly through the viewfinder. “It’s getting kind of close.”

“Nah, we’re alright for a minute yet,” he heard Noel reply. His stomach squirmed a little at that, but he looked away from the view quickly for a careful glance down the road, and took a deep breath when he made out the black bulk of the 4Runner, half-hidden behind the young corn stalks. From this distance, he also could just make out a pale shock of hair next to it. Okay. It was alright. Just a lightning storm, he thought, and returned to filming.

The next odd bolt struck one of the instruments. Rachael cried out triumphantly, crowing about a direct hit, but Adam winced. He’d felt the hair on his head stand on-end briefly, and the backs of his arms had erupted into gooseflesh that had nothing to do with the rapidly-cooling air. Too close. “Maybe,” he just heard Noel say over the peal of thunder that followed, “we oughta get into the car.”

“It’s getting kind of close, yeah?” Rachael replied. Adam felt a few rain drops patter down and he shivered a little. “Looks like it could produce hail, too, so -”

Adam smelled the ozone before he saw the upward leader. In spite of himself, he didn’t jump: he hardly had the time. The leader blindly reached up from the dirt on the side of the road just opposite to him, and a second later another strangely slow, direct bolt tore through the air to connect with the leader. 

He was blinded by the light a second later, deaf from the thunder, his arms raised to protect his face and his nose and mouth full of electricity. He might have screamed, but it was lost in the noise of it all, and he bolted for the truck, camera and tripod clenched in his fist which had slammed shut with the strike, either from terror or residual current. 

His senses were returning to him by the time he realized he’d jumped in the truck and slammed the door shut, his vision still dazzled but clear enough to see Lucky sitting in the seat across from him, wide-eyed with terror. “Did it hit you?” The other boy asked, his voice thick in Adam’s ears. 

Adam tried to talk with a mouth that was too dry. He was vaguely aware of Rachael and Noel in the front seat, but paid them no mind, instead fumbling a bottle of water until he managed to open it and take a mouthful. “Are you okay?” Rachael asked, leaning into his field of vision which was, gradually re-widening from the too-narrow tunnel it had been. “Adam? Did it hit you?”

“Didn’t hit me,” he replied, breathless but already feeling better for the water. Rain was lashing at the truck now, interspersed with some hail, and he shivered in spite of himself as another bolt found purchase in the road just in front of the grille. “Almost, but didn’t.”

“God, that scared me.” Noel laid his hand on Adam’s head, and then let his arm fall to his shoulder, pulling the boy into as much of a hug as he could considering he was in the driver’s seat and Adam was just behind him. “I thought it had you, Adam, I really did.”

“It almost did.” He took another gulp of water, and turned back to the window, looking out to the gray rain-soaked road he’d just been standing on. A charred patch of asphalt was still faintly smoking. “It was … literally right there.”

The four of them jumped together when another bolt hit the truck proper, this time on Rachael’s side, blowing the mirror off. Lucky yelped and ended up practically in Adam’s lap, as far away from the window as he could be. 

“Is it targeting us or something?” Noel yelled. “Jesus Christ, look at that! The mirror’s gone!”

Rachael shut her laptop and set it on the floor mat, as far away from herself as she could. “We could drive away and come back for the instruments later. I doubt anyone out here will be looking to swipe them …”

Noel waved to the windshield. “It’s coming down in sheets; I couldn’t see to drive anyway. Just no one touch the doors, stay away from the windows if you can, and we’ll get outta here as soon as I can see.” 

They sat silently for a few minutes while the storm battered the truck, Adam and Lucky huddled together in the middle of the back bench, Adam still shaking and Lucky still as calm waters. His shoulder against Adam’s was warm and reassuring, as long as Adam didn’t make a note of how pale his face looked. 

“You got a direct hit, though,” Noel said quietly, after a bit. “On one of those instruments. Oughta get some good data out of that.”

“Ought to, yeah.” Rachael glanced into the backseat, to the two students, and then looked to Noel. “It was … strange, that lightning, don’t you think?”

Noel winced. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen lightning do weird stuff before, but to move that slow and so … like it was  _ direct _ , didn’t you think? I thought it looked pretty straight-and-true, for lightning. Even a positive strike.”

“Me too.”

Adam didn’t say anything. As soon as the conversation had started, he had looked to Lucky, and found the other boy already watching him carefully, face slack. “Direct,” mouthed Lucky silently, echoing Noel. Adam nodded slowly in return. Lucky’s eyes flicked backwards, searching down the road for the 4Runner, but it was too dark and rainy outside to see if it was still there. Likely, though, Adam thought, because there was a glow back there in the rain. Headlights, probably. Crowley and Aziraphale. He took a breath and nodded to the other boy, whose shoulders sagged visibly with relief. 

“It’ll be interesting to analyze the data later,” Rachael muttered, watching the storm bluster outside. “Right, looks like it’s calming down. This might be our break?”

“Let’s head back to town. I could use a coffee. You got a flashlight for later?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” Noel turned the truck on, flipped a U-turn, and started back down the road, through the rain which had slowed enough to permit some visibility, toward Cedar Bluffs. “You guys alright with this?”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, watching the 4Runner carefully as they drove past. No sign of Aziraphale or Crowley outside of the car, but it looked like they were inside, maybe with the interior light on, if the soft glow in the car was anything to judge by.

“Yeah,” Lucky echoed, voice faint, still huddled up next to Adam. “Yeah, I think that’s super alright.”

-

Although the lightning may not have  _ looked _ different initially, Aziraphale had felt something almost immediately - something greasy and heavy and hot. Crowley had felt it too, and though they’d stepped out of the car for better visibility (at least in Aziraphale’s case anyway), they moved closer together, leaned against the 4Runner as they watched.

“What do we do if they try to do something?” Crowley murmured. “And what about you, in the middle of all of this?”

Aziraphale sighed as the clouds trundled eastward overhead. “You’re quite sure you can’t manipulate the weather?”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale for a second. “ _ No _ ,” he answered after a stunned pause. “What? No! I’m a demon, not  _ Zeus _ .”

“Well, you stopped time once.” Aziraphale replied snippily, glowering at him out of the corner of his eye. “Just thought I’d ask.” He frowned as another bolt flickered up in the clouds, never appearing beyond the borders of the thunderhead. “Would you be able to do a … a shield, sort of thing? Or discourage the storm from harming them?”

“Dunno.” Crowley’s brow furrowed. “Probably could manage something. Er … well, if we’re worried the big threat is  _ lightning _ -”

“I’m rather hoping it will be, yes.”

“What?” Crowley frowned. “Hang on, we’ll come back to it, anyway, as I was saying, if the big threat is lightning, there’ll be a negative charge that’s strong enough to attract the positive charge from the clouds, so I could kind of … scramble the electrons …” as he’d been speaking, he had moved away from the car, stalking around Aziraphale until he was positioned near the engine. He stared ahead, watching the flickers of movement around the red mass of truck, and then nodded suddenly, satisfied. “Right, got it. Okay. So what was that about lightning?” He turned on his heel, swaying a little after he spun, to face the angel. “Did you say you  _ want _ there to be lightning?”

“Yes, rather.” Aziraphale was still watching the storm, expression mildly interested but with a weight to the air around him that Crowley had come to recognize through the years as one brought on by deep thought. “I’ve not done this in a while, but with a proper strike of lightning, I think I could manage to pull another angel through.”

“Oh,” Crowley said simply, wide, surprised eyes visible even with his glasses. “Naturally.”

“You didn’t know that? Here, dear boy, do you still have that chalk on you?”

Crowley produced the box of chalk from his pocket. “Rain’s just going to wash it away in a bit,” he warned Aziraphale as the angel considered the available colors and, at length, chose yellow. 

Aziraphale bent over and started ponderously drawing out a series of sigils. “It’ll last long enough.” He encircled a cluster of symbols with a perfect, flawless circle, in spite of the cheap chalk and cracked asphalt. “I can’t remember the exact sigils or true name but …” he straightened up and propped his hands on his hips. Closer now, a crack of lightning split the sky. Crowley started glancing frantically back and forth, between his angel and the humans, unsure of who to watch more closely. 

“Bit important that, don’t you think?” He twitched his nose and flicked his tongue out quickly, and then, with a wince, snapped his fingers, rearranging the electrons around the red truck just so. 

“Not as much as you’d think,” Aziraphale muttered, now tapping the chalk against his lips. “I believe demons are fussier about exact terms and names, honestly. Ah, yes, I think this ought to do it.” He bent down again and deliberately wrote a handful more symbols. “There. Now, where is the lightning?” He dropped the chalk back into his pocket and turned around. Crowley pointed to the northwest, but didn’t dare look away from Adam and Lucky. The air was sharper now, all around, and he’d seen the first strange bolt searching blindly for a target. 

Aziraphale watched politely for a minute and said, “Er, Crowley?”

“Yeah?” The second odd bolt struck, and Crowley winced, scenting at the air again right after and huffing out a strained breath as he snapped his fingers. “Bit busy, angel.”

“Obviously, of course, but er …” Aziraphale folded his hands behind his back and cautiously took a few steps toward the demon, leaning around Crowley’s shoulder a bit further into his field of vision. “I don’t suppose you could help me out a bit?”

“With what?”

“Well, you’re manipulating the charges around the truck, I see - and a wonderful job you’re doing with those electrons, my dear, really - but I don’t suppose you could make my circle a bit  _ more _ prone to a lightning strike?” He shuffled his feet. “Just a bit. I won’t need much.”

“ _ Angel _ .” The clouds above rumbled again and Crowley winced. A drop of rain plopped onto his jacket and, after a minute, began to steam. “It’s not as easy as I make this look, you know.”

“Of course not! Naturally. But, well, you stopped time once …” Crowley glanced over - just for a second - and Someone help him Aziraphale might have actually  _ batted his eyelashes _ . Crowley rolled his eyes. “Please?”

Thunder broke overhead, and Crowley snarled, managing to fire off another miracle. A fork of lightning veered off at a 90-degree angle, suddenly finding a more invitingly-positive stalk of corn about 20 yards away from the humans. “What do you need?” he asked, trying to keep the shake out of his hand. The rain was falling a bit harder now, a proper drizzle, and he could feel his corporation aching a little at the joints, exhaustion seeping into centuries-old bones as the true, more metaphysical version of Crowley started to press outward, the better to see the electrons all around. The clouds above were positively  _ boiling _ with them, just looking for a place to strike. And, he thought, maybe a  _ bit _ more organized than he’d expect an ordinary thunderstorm to look, not that he’d done much checking before today.

“Just a good, positive charge around my circle there, if you’d be so kind. I just need one bolt, if you can.”

Crowley grit his teeth. “No idea if I can. I can  _ try _ .” He could feel the air around him, too thick and full of particles, sliding over the planes of his true form as it pressed closer to reality. He warned, “Nothing about this is going to be even remotely controlled.”

“Understood.” Wisely, Aziraphale took a step backwards, positioning himself just behind the demon. “Let me know when you’re ready so I can be prep -”

“ _ Now _ !”

A few things happened at once: first, there was a blinding flash of light from the clouds above, as a swarm of particles congealed into one place and promptly superheated to the point that any surrounding elements vaporized instantly into plasma. Crowley saw this, and also saw that at that very same moment, there was an absolute dearth of  _ any _ kind of negative charge around Adam whatsoever, for feet to all sides. With a snarl, he acted, his form rippling at the edges and black scales flickering into existence across his skin, but no matter. It was  _ working _ , was the important part, and even though the effort of it made his head swim he couldn’t help but feel intensely proud as he dipped his metaphysical hands straight into the particles around Aziraphale’s little summoning circle and flung them 100 yards down the road, toward Adam, buffering the boy with a cloud of electrons.

The lightning forked, just below the bottom edge of the cloud. The largest fork - the one initially intended for Adam, Crowley was sure - tore downwards toward the boy but was deflected, searing into the road just in front of Adam with an ear-splitting crack. Behind Crowley, another smaller fork arced into the summoning circle, and although there was a bit of a squeak about his tone, Aziraphale managed to blurt out something in the language of the angels. Amid the heavy smell of ozone and the washed-out white of his vision, Crowley suddenly sensed another Holy signal - an angel, not Aziraphale - at his back.

As Crowley realized the road was coming up to meet him, he saw Adam, Lucky, and the other two bolt into the truck. “Oh, good,” he said, before his cheek smacked against the asphalt and he promptly passed out.

-

He came around in the car. He was covered by Aziraphale’s coat, and the first thing his mind alerted him to was that his clothes were  _ soaked _ . The coat was warm - probably a minor miracle, if he had to guess - and that was going a long way at the moment, but the sensation of wet clothes was still deeply unpleasant.

Then again, he thought muzzily, the prospect of miracleing them dry just now seemed a bit much. He made a quiet little noise of discontent and tried to wriggle deeper into the coat, hissing in irritation as his shirt caught on … on his scales, yeah, that’s right, it would do, wouldn’t it, he’d have to work on getting them put away in just a second. 

“He’s cool, right?”

The strange, thickly-accented voice cut through Crowley’s post-unconsciousness haze and he bolted up, spinning around in the seat, wide-eyed, to face the voice. Aziraphale’s hand settled on his shoulder, reassuring. “Yes. He’s cool. Crowley, it’s alright; this is Moroni.”

Crowley blinked. The angel in the back seat - dark hair, olive skin, and a dark green shirt - blinked back before timidly offering up a little wave. “‘Ey.”

He hissed a bit when he spoke, because his tongue didn’t quite feel like it had managed to start moving properly again. “Aren’t you the one responssible for Mormonsss?” Crowley squinted, trying to bring the new angel into better focus, and halfway succeeding. Well enough, anyway, to see the word ‘Eagles’ emblazoned in white across the front of his shirt, and to make out a two-day beard along his jaw. “Right?”

The reply, when it came, was muttered. Embarrassed. “Yeah. Kinda.”

“Golden platesss, hm? Were thosse actually real?”

Moroni huffed. “I dunno, pal, was that apple really the key to all knowledge or was it just an excuse?”

“It  _ wasss  _ the key to all knowledge,” Crowley snapped, bristling. “The fuck kind of angel are -”

“ _ Moroni _ ,” Aziraphale cut in suddenly, gently shoving Crowley back into his seat a bit, “was just telling me about the goings-on in Heaven. Such as he is aware.”

Crowley boggled a little, opening and closing his mouth once or twice before he got a hold of himself. “They still talk to you? You started a  _ cult _ .”

Moroni sat up a little straighter, pointing toward Crowley as his expression twisted into something ugly and bitter. “Listen, asshole,  _ I  _ didn’t do shit about a cult, I was just supposed to renew faith with those things but it ain’t my fault that -”

“Yeah, okay,” Crowley scoffed, cutting him off. “Ss’that how you justified it to your boss?” He sneered. “Surprised you didn’t enjoy a complimentary free fall into the old sulfur spa after that cock-up.”

Crowley figured it would get a rise - that was the whole point, after all. He hadn’t totally expected the other angel to take a lunge toward him though, winding up for what looked to be a practiced and  _ very _ competent right hook. Crowley didn’t flinch away - he was a demon after all, and what kind of demon shies away from taking a hit now and then - but before Moroni could land a punch Aziraphale scrambled in between them, one hand flat against Crowley’s chest and his other clenched into a fist around the collar of Moroni’s shirt. “ _ Enough _ !” the Principality snapped, and both Crowley and Moroni froze.

For a solid thirty seconds, the only sound was the rain lashing at the car and the thunder rumbling outside. 

Crowley was the first to relax, slumping backwards against the steering wheel and craning his head around toward where the red truck had been. The rain was falling too furiously to make out the bulk of the truck itself, but the tail-lights were bright in the gloom, the yellow flashers blinking underneath. He nodded, satisfied, and turned back around. 

Aziraphale was watching him sternly, and Crowley nodded to him once; an affirmation. Aziraphale returned the gesture. Still, the demon kept his eyes on Moroni, even as Aziraphale eased up his grip on the football jersey collar. “Alright?” Aziraphale asked, more to Moroni than anything. “I have a few questions, and once they’re answered you’ll be free to return to … wherever you were.”

“Philly,” Moroni murmured sourly. “Fine. Long as your snake keeps his mouth shut.”

A sharp look from Aziraphale cut Crowley off before he could fire back a response. “ _ Crowley _ ,” Aziraphale snapped, once he’d turned back to Moroni. “His name is Crowley. I’d thank you to remember it.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Moroni looked out of the window, jerking backwards and out of Aziraphale’s grasp to sit, arms crossed and legs spread across the back seat of the car. “Fine. What’d you wanna know?”

“Well, it’s just as I was saying before you woke up, Crowley.” Aziraphale sat back a bit, not really relaxing but obviously wanting to give that impression, his eyes flickering back and forth between Crowley and Moroni. “It appears there is a … a movement from Above to re-start Armageddon. Or, well, at least to terminate the former Anti-Christ. What do you know of it?”

Moroni shrugged. “Nothin’. News to me.” He sniffed, and looked sidelong to the other angel. “You think it’s gonna get goin’ again?”

“I’m not sure; that’s why I’m asking. Have you heard anything from Above about a … a re-do, as it were?”

“No.” Warily, he looked to Crowley. “You shouldn’ know any of this, demon.”

“I’m not exactly on good terms with your opposition,” Crowley responded tightly. “Hardly as though I have anyone to tell.”

Moroni harrumphed. “Guess so. But yeah, no, no re-do s’far as I know. I jus’ saw Sachiel last week too, in town for some blessing or something, she didn’t say a word about it. In fact …” he looked furtively side-to-side, and lowered his voice. “Well, this doesn’t go anywhere, right? But we had a few drinks after, got some hoagies, an’ we were talking about, you know, stuff.” He shrugged. “Earth stuff. Nothing serious. She’s an Eagles fan, you know? Fly Eagles Fly, baby.”

Aziraphale and Crowley looked blank. Moroni shook his head mournfully. “Gotta get you off that island some time, Aziraphale.  _ Anyway _ , the way she was talkin’ - an’ she didn’t say anything super specific, y’know, but just talkin’ - was like she thought things were just situation normal. Peaceful like, even. Leadin’ up to that whole thing a few years ago, s’all she would tell me about, how things were goin’, preparations bein’ made, all that. Not that she was  _ happy  _ about it, but ...” He huffed and shook his head. “I wasn’ too pumped for it, an’ she pro’ly knew, but I played the part. But this was like all the times we talked before then. Just, y’know, normal conversation.” He shrugged. “Sports, gossip, all that. You know Gabriel’s been spending more time Earth-side?”

“Has he?” Aziraphale blinked. “Doing what?”

Another shrug from the broad-shouldered angel. “No one knows. He goes all over, too, she said - like he’s lookin’ for something. So I dunno, maybe he’s doin’ something, but doesn’t sound like it. On my end he’s been real quiet.” He sighed. “An’ Michael’s, y’know, still ramping up for war whenever it happens, but Michael’s been doing that for, I dunno, what, five thousand years?” He spread his hands. “Nothin’ new there.”

Aziraphale frowned. “No. And Yeshua -”

Moroni barked out a laugh. “You think they let me know  _ anything _ about Yeshua? C’mon Aziraphale - I’m pro’ly the only other angel that gets kept at arm’s length aside from you. I got nothin’. Last I heard they had Raziel watching him, but that was years ago.”

“Hm. Yes.” Aziraphale stayed tight-lipped while Crowley involuntarily grinned, remembering their unusually memorable Christmas a few years back when Yeshua had given old Raziel the slip and spent the night in the bookshop, just for old times’ sake. “Alright.”

“Y’know it makes sense though,” Moroni said conversationally. “If someone offs the old Antichrist, Hell can make a new one and it’ll start all over again. ‘Course, that assumes Hell’s in on the whole plan and Old Scratch is up for having another kid.” He looked at Crowley. “Hm?”

Crowley snorted. “If you think Downstairs talks to me anymore you’re crazier than the guy you -”

“Yes, Crowley, please don’t.” Aziraphale silenced him with a glare, prompting Crowley to slouch backwards against the door and cross his arms. “Your point is well-taken.”

Moroni snorted. “At this rate you’re gonna know more about Heaven than Hell.” He pointed out of the windshield, toward the taillights of the truck ahead. “And you’re still watching that kid, hm? Sure you ain’t an angel?”

A hiss slipped out, mostly unprompted, although Crowley might have thrown a little extra umph into it once he realized what he was doing. “ _ Very _ .”

“It wasn’t a threat.” Moroni raised his hands. “Jokes, man. You ain’t no angel, I know that.” He made a show of checking his watch. “Hey, uh, are we done here? ‘Cause the Phillies got a night game -”

“Yes, I think we are.” Aziraphale looked to Crowley, who nodded slowly, not looking away from the other angel. “Yes. Oh, and the rain’s slowing. How convenient.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll fly.” Crowley looked away, out of the car window, as the holy light flooded the interior. As he looked, the red truck with the boys in it drove by, heading back toward town. “Let you get back to work there with your kid, Guardian.” He snorted at Crowley, who snarled in response. Moroni looked upwards then for a second, the back seat of the car suddenly filled with dazzlingly white wings, before turning his attention to Aziraphale. He nodded, solemn. “Good luck. Lemme know ‘f you’re ever in town. Thanks ah … well, don’t tell anyone I said this but uh, thanks for not lettin’ the world end. Both of youse, and that kid.” He beamed. “Gave me a whole year to enjoy the Eagles bein’ Superbowl champs.”

Aziraphale’s smile was a bit brittle. “How lovely. It was our pleasure.”

“I’ll treat you to some scrapple, hey? Uriel says you like food. Get you some local delicacies.” He punched Aziraphale companionably in the shoulder and ignored the snarl he got from Crowley in return. “Some pork roll, cheesesteak obviously, an’ hey if it’s nice I know a guy who does water ice, ‘ey? Lemme know.”

He flapped his wings one time, as much as he could in the cramped confines of the car, and then went spectral, phasing through the roof and rising skywards, through the clouds, presumably darting away with the cover of the storm. 

Crowley waited for a long moment before he grumbled, “No  _ wonder _ you didn’t want to talk to him. Prick.”

“He has been through a lot over the years.”

“ _ We’ve _ been through a lot, and I’d hope we’ve got more bloody manners than that wanker.” Still grumbling rather incoherently, more out of a general  _ feeling _ of annoyance than any particular string of words, Crowley re-situated himself in the driver’s seat and turned the car on, a delighted shiver coursing through him as the heaters blew on. “ _ That’s _ alright. Bloody freezing in here.”

“Oh, of course; you’re still soaked. I miracled the coat to be warm and dry,” Aziraphale said, but Crowley was already pulling it on anyway, wrapping the old thing around his skinny torso and hunching down into it with a contented sigh. Warmth miracles aside, Aziraphale’s coat was just …  _ nice _ . Crowley loved it, although he would never admit it out loud. “Will you be … well, Crowley, do you think you ought to be driving?” Aziraphale dithered. “What you did back there with the lightning was remarkable, my boy, but it seemed to take rather a lot out of you.”

Crowley shrugged one shoulder and tried not to sag down in his seat, although now, with the other angel gone and the warm comfort of Aziraphale’s coat wrapped around him, he would admit his angel had a point. He wondered where the boys would be setting up for the night, and whether or not the crappy motel beds would do the job, since he certainly wasn’t feeling up to miracleing a bed into being. He could always ask Aziraphale to do it, of course, but then they  _ were _ trying to avoid unnecessary miracles, weren’t they … ?

“Crowley?” He startled a little, and realized he’d been sitting at a stop sign and staring blankly ahead for the past however-long. Aziraphale was watching him with no small amount of concern. “Crowley, I  _ do _ know how to drive.”

“No, you don’t.” The demon shook himself and sat up a little straighter. “Which way’d they go?”

Aziraphale sighed. “That way, and then left onto the main street again.” Neither of them spoke until they caught sight of the red truck parked along the curb across from the town’s only bar. There were a handful of other cars clustered around it, and warm yellow light spilled out from the front window. “Looks like a few people decided to wait it out inside.”

“Smart.” Crowley cruised past the bar slowly. “You see them?”

“N - Yes! Yes, there the four of them are. Near enough to the windows, anyway, if you can find a spot that I can watch them.”

Crowley yawned. “Don’t have to tell me twice.” The town wasn’t exactly populus, and he had little trouble finding a suitable space to park in. With the car stationary, and the radio playing some tropical-sounding song softly over the speakers, Crowley scrambled from the driver’s seat and into the back seat on shaky limbs. “You mind if I - ?”

Aziraphale was already shaking his head. “I’d rather hoped you would. Rest up, Crowley - I’ll keep watch.”

“Great.” The 4Runner’s back seat wasn’t exactly meant for sleeping but, well, Crowley had done worse. He curled up under the coat as much as he could, eyelids already sliding shut. A bit of wriggling until he found the most comfortable position possible, and then he breathed out, feeling the thick fog of exhaustion starting to settle over him. “Hey, Aziraphale?” he asked, slurring his words around his sleep-thick tongue. 

“Yes, dear?”

“What the fuck is ‘wooder ice’?”

“I have no idea.”

“Oh. Okay. Just checking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know Moroni technically appeared to Joseph Smith in western New York state, but Philadelphia just felt Right and I made an executive decision.


	15. A Hail of a Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teen angst when you're the Antichrist - Turbo Edition

That night in the hotel room, tense, impenetrable silence sat heavy in the space between the two boys. Adam was lost in thought, and though Lucky seemed once or twice like he was going to speak up, he always seemed to think better of it and divert the topic to something neutral, like food or whether or not Adam cared if he put the TV on. “I dunno that I’m gonna watch anything,” the other boy added quickly, after he’d asked. “You know. Since we have to get up early tomorrow. Just … in case.” 

“Yeah, s’fine.” Adam was already in his sleep clothes, cross-legged on his bed and staring at the screen of his phone. He hadn’t opened any kind of program or sent any messages for at least half an hour; not since his last brief exchange with Crowley to confirm that yes, Crowley was parked outside of the right ground-floor room and no, Adam wouldn’t feel better if one of the two self-appointed bodyguards hung around in the room that night, just in case. He considered he ought to text the Them, even if just to say hello, and paused, his thumb hovering above the screen. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Lucky asked, quietly.

‘ _ Crazy over here. Miss you guys _ ,’ Adam tapped out, before he registered that Lucky had said anything. “Huh?”

The other boy was watching him, dark eyes earnest and soft. “I dunno. Like. If you wanna talk about it.”

Adam stared at his phone for a minute before he shrugged. “What about?”

“The lightning, dude.”

“Oh. I dunno. It was weird.”

Silence oozed in once more while Lucky watched Adam, jaw working. Adam met his gaze for a while, blankly, but looked away, down to the screen when his phone buzzed. He heard Lucky sigh. “Yeah. Weird. You know, um, I think I’m just gonna go to sleep. G’night, Adam.”

“Night.”

It had actually been Wensley to text back first, surprisingly. Wensley was almost never the first on the response, being more of a type to consider his reply and construct it carefully before sending. But he was still up - what he was doing up at 1am, Adam had to wonder, but knowing Wensley he was probably on some kind of deep-dive into the inner workings of contractual law or something - and Pepper and Brian were, evidently, not. 

‘ _ It’s pretty boring over here without you, actually. We miss you. Have you developed a more accurate model for tornadogenesis yet? Ha ha! _ ’

Softly, Adam smiled at the phone as he thought about how to respond. Good old Wensley: always keeping his mind on learning something new. 

‘ _ Not yet, _ ’ Adam replied, hesitating before finishing the message off with, ‘ _ Let you know as soon as I crack it. Enjoy the boringness over there, it’s plenty exciting over here _ .’ He sent a video of a small tornado - one he’d taken a few days ago - as well, just for good measure. Nothing, he wanted to assert, out of the ordinary to see here.

In the other bed, Lucky sniffled, rustling around the covers in search of a more comfortable position. Adam sighed, tossed his phone onto the pillow next to him, and let his eyes fall shut. He’d assumed that he’d have difficulty falling asleep - he could still hear the crack of the lightning, remember the way it had utterly blinded him and filled his nose with the curious smell of ozone - but to the contrary, he took a few deep breaths, swallowed once, and sleep took him gently into the night.

-

Near enough, in the back of the 4Runner, Crowley was also sleeping, deathly still and huddled under Aziraphale’s coat. Every once in a while he would twitch, or reposition slightly, and Aziraphale would nod at the reassuring sound of the demon squirming around. Once he even mumbled something, though it was in a language Aziraphale didn’t recognize right away and, knowing Crowley, was likely unintelligible besides. 

Aziraphale himself was seated in the front seat, writing notes. Though his eyes would occasionally flicker up to the window of the hotel room, double-checking that Adam and Lucky were indeed the only two souls inside the room, he mostly stared at the page before him. He’d been chewing the pencil’s eraser as he thought, and the little pink bit was nearly gone now, but unfortunately he felt no more informed for it. He had been accruing the Known Facts, just as he’d done during the Apocalypse, and was reviewing them to try to see if he could wring some sense out of them. 

He rather hoped Crowley would wake up soon, because he was having a devil of a time getting anything logical out of the information, and he hoped perhaps an actual devil might have better luck.

The facts were as follows, written clearly in Aziraphale’s neat penmanship:

  1. Archangel Michael and Duke Hastur are working together.
  2. Objective of their collaboration: harm Adam 
  3. The ends unclear: neither Heaven nor Hell appear to be openly aware of their movements.
  4. Use of weather to accomplish goal (subtlety - hiding their intentions?)
  5. Another, as-of-yet unidentified angelic presence also persistently present, though no intervention or sightings to date
  6. Warlock (not-Antichrist) involved, though whether by chance or intention unclear.



He frowned at the conclusions he had reached: they were mostly unhelpful, he felt, and certainly points 5 and 6 begged for more information. Crowley snored softly in the back seat, and Aziraphale glanced into the rearview mirror to watch as he rolled onto his belly, cheek smashed against the upholstery of the car. 

If only he were awake and able to keep watch, perhaps Aziraphale could explore the car park; now that he was looking for it, he could feel another angel nearby just as easily as he could feel the cool night air wafting in through the cracked window. But no, manipulating that lightning earlier in the day had clearly taken it out of the demon, and if he was going to be good for anything the next day he needed a solid kip for a few hours to recover.

Aziraphale did feel a little pang of guilt at that, when he thought back to the lightning. Big miracles were tricky business, and weather was trickier than most; when God had come up with weather, She had frankly just set the whole business of it spinning and then let it look after itself. Aziraphale, being a Principality, was quite adept at a variety of types of miracles, but changing weather had never been one of them: he was more likely to protect his people and usher them to safety than he was to just wave the weather away. That, after all, was for God to do.

But he  _ could _ . He was an angel. Certainly, he’d never tried beyond stopping a passing shower every once in a great while, and even that always left him a bit parched, but the point stood: had he wanted to engineer a direct lightning strike during the storm today, he probably could have. But Crowley had done it so artfully, really digging into the meat of the storm rather than just yanking a bolt out with brute force - it was better that way, Aziraphale thought, and certainly less likely to draw unwanted attention.

“But why Adam?” he muttered, tapping his lips with the pencil. 

In the cup holder, next to Crowley’s outsized and empty coffee cup, the demon’s phone buzzed and lit up with an incoming message. Aziraphale paused, glanced to the back seat where Crowley was still fast asleep, and then decided there was nothing for it: he could at least look at who the message was from. Crowley would have asked him to, anyway. And then, when he picked up the thing and saw the message was from Lucky, he swiped it open, grateful for the distraction. 

‘ _ U up Nanny _ ?’

Lips pursed, Aziraphale began to tap out a reply: ‘ _ Nanny is not up - this is Aziraphale. Are you alright? _ ’

The reply didn’t come right away - there was a pause before the ellipsis displayed and indicated Lucky working on a response. But then, almost as soon as it appeared, the next message came through. ‘ _ Im fine. Worried abt Adam. _ ’

In person, Aziraphale wouldn’t have needed to say a word: by facial expressions and body language alone he could have communicated that he didn’t understand entirely, that he was willing to help, that he needed more information. But with the glossy black rectangle in his hand there was no possibility of those little mannerisms getting through. He sighed, frustrated, and started again to type, wondering vaguely all the while if Crowley would show him the voice-to-text thing he used so often. ‘ _ What are you concerned about, dear boy? Is he well? _ ’

‘ _ lol Francis u text like ur from 1600 _ ’

‘ _ I assure you I’m from rather earlier than that, dear boy, if we’re being precise. _ ’

‘ _ lol _ ’

With a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, Aziraphale shook his head and replied, ‘ _ Why are you worried? _ ’

‘ _ Hes quiet. i think hes freaked out. he almost got got. _ ’ And then, after a pause, ‘ _ i think it was on purpose, do u? _ ’

‘ _ I do _ .’

‘ _ y? _ ’

‘ _ I don’t know. I am working on it. I need your Nanny to wake up so I can discuss it with him further _ .’

‘ _ can i do anything? _ ’

Remarkable, Aziraphale thought, as his heart nearly burst with something like angelic pride*. His Lucky - human, wonderful Warlock Dowling, raised to be the Antichrist and decidedly very much not - asking to help. And in such a situation, too, where any other ordinary human would feel helpless, perhaps hopeless, or just generally less-than-charitable. Aziraphale debated waking Crowley, just to share the moment, but a quick glance into the rearview mirror dissuaded him. Let him rest - the texts would be there in the morning, he thought. Probably. Truthfully, he wasn’t exactly sure how long they stayed.

[* _ In fact, what he was feeling was rather more similar to  _ paternal _ pride than angelic, being that angels were not supposed to feel proud, but Aziraphale, not having ever been a parent, had never quite managed to understand the distinction _ .]

After a period of consideration, Aziraphale replied. ‘ _ You can be a friend to him. I think he will need a friend, over here. Just keep doing the same, Lucky.’ _

‘ _ o ok. we can defeat an archangel and duke of hell w the power of friendship. got it. lol. ill txt if we figure anything out abt the lightning too?’ _ Aziraphale snorted quietly, amused. Well, the world had been saved much the same way just a few years ago, but Lucky wasn’t to know that. Not yet, anyway. He rather imagined it would come out sooner or later. 

‘ _ Please do _ .’

‘ _ k. night aziraphale. _ ’

‘ _ Goodnight, Hellspawn _ .’

There was a sleepy vocalization from the back seat, and Aziraphale practically chucked the phone into the center console, as if it had suddenly erupted into flames. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were. You were texting. I saw you.” Crowley had rolled onto his side and was blinking muzzily at Aziraphale, a sizable fringe of shoulder-length hair falling across his face. 

“Oh! Oh, ha, yes. Yes, I suppose I was.” Aziraphale turned around and patted Crowley warmly on the shoulder. “Just checking in with Lucky about the plans. Don’t worry, dear boy, get some rest: they’re leaving early tomorrow, from the sound of it. I’ll catch you up then.” Honestly, Lucky had texted the plans - such as they were - to Crowley hours ago, and Aziraphale had read it aloud to the demon, but Crowley was running on fumes at that point, nearly the entirety of his mental faculties occupied with following the storm chasers’ truck to the hotel. Aziraphale doubted he’d recall the conversation. 

“Oh. Okay. Wha’ time is it?”

“Half ten.”

“Mm. I’ll be good in a few hours. Wake me up?”

“Of course.”

“M’kay.” Crowley yawned, jaw stretching perhaps a bit wider than the angel would expect a normal human’s to, and rolled over, the coat wrapping around him more tightly yet. “Lucky texted that to me hours ago though, angel. ‘Member? You read it to me.”

“... So I did.”

“You gonna read the actual thing you were texting about when I’m awake?”

Aziraphale smiled softly. “Of course, Crowley,” he said quietly, as he popped open the glove compartment and pulled out his latest novel. “Get some rest,” he repeated. Crowley didn’t say anything in response, but Aziraphale heard a sort of snuffling noise that he presumed indicated agreement. When he next checked the back seat, Crowley was still again, soundly asleep. In the motel room, he could see the signatures of the boys too, asleep and peaceful. Quietly as he could, he allowed an extra eye to flicker open. One eye on the boys, two on the book, and he settled in for the night.

-

Dawn, Adam thought, was always a beautiful time to start the day. He’d been an early riser most of his life, up until he’d turned oh, about fourteen or fifteen, and on days like today, he had a hard time remembering why he’d stopped*. The sky was glowing, red and pink and orange, and wispy white clouds drifted across it like lines on paper. “Cirrostratus,” Adam murmured sleepily from his slumped posture against the truck, and then he stared at his shoes when he realized he had actually said that aloud.

[*  _ Staying up until the wee hours playing video games, usually; he struggled with them a bit more since renouncing his Antichrist powers, and more and more often found himself staying up past two or three in the morning, working out a puzzle or creeping through some computer-generated bracken in pursuit of digital glory _ .]

Rachael took a sip of her coffee. “Very good. Which means?”

“Rain within the next 12 to 24 hours,” Adam said. “Or snow but, uh …”

Lucky, likewise leaning on the car to Adam’s left, yawned. “Not here.” He blinked up to the clouds blearily. “So if it’s going to rain here … Should we stay put?” He blinked rapidly a few times when Rachael thrust her laptop into his hands.

“I dunno,” she replied, grinning widely. “You tell me, hm? You guys can figure it out in the truck on the way to breakfast. Hungry?”

Adam and Lucky answered to the affirmative, and the four chasers piled into the truck. Noel was quiet that morning, dark eyes fixed on the road as he navigated to the nearest Denny’s. Adam leaned over and watched Lucky open up the laptop and the weather modeling software. While they drove, the two of them sleepily studied the Doppler and the wind patterns. Now and then, one would reach out to trace a possible track for a system. Rachael, for her part, didn’t say another word until they pulled into the Denny’s parking lot. “So? What say you about the plan to target Oklahoma today?”

“Be a lot less driving if you say no,” Noel snorted, mindful as he guided the truck into a space.

“I think …” Adam started, and then looked to the other student for confirmation. Lucky nodded. “I think it’s going to rain here today, but there’s not going to be nearly enough warm air from the south to produce anything significant. Judging by the way things look now, the front from the northwest will block it off … right over Oklahoma.”

Rachael pumped a fist in the air. “ _ Very _ good assessment, I think! I reached the same conclusion myself last night.”

Noel, on the other hand, sighed, and rubbed at the crack on the windshield a little. “You couldn’t have disagreed and said Nebraska looks fine, huh?” He chuckled. “I mean, you’re correct, but not looking forward to all the driving.”

“I’ll trade you off.” Rachael slid out of the truck and the rest followed one-by-one. As she and Noel walked ahead, bickering good-naturedly about the relative values of missing storms compared to long drives, Adam decided to hang back. Lucky did too, his sharp eyes on Adam.

“You alright?” The dark-haired boy asked. “Wanna talk about something?”

Adam’s eyes flickered from Noel and Rachael, to the corner of the parking lot, where a familiar black SUV was parked. “Kinda but like … not in front of them … ?” He trailed off, nodding toward Noel and Rachael. “Dunno. Been doing some thinking. I’m still … not sure this is a good idea.” He made a motion with his hands that was broadly intended to be all-encompassing. “This … trip.”

He watched Lucky’s face carefully as the other boy nodded his head back and forth, thinking. “I can see that,” he said eventually, slowly. “But I think also Crowley and - um.” He paused and lowered his voice, mindful of the increased proximity to the storm chasers as they drew nearer to the door. “I think they’re right - this is going to follow you wherever. Might as well stick with what you’ve already started.” His mouth twisted and he shook his head when Adam opened his mouth to protest. “No, listen, I  _ know _ it’s dangerous. I’m not gonna pretend like I’m not … kinda freaked out. But like … I feel safer around you guys, if that makes sense.” He shrugged. “‘Course, that’s me being selfish, so take it however.”

“No,” Adam said thoughtfully, ducking into the Denny’s at Noel’s behest. “No, I get it.” He shrugged. “But I’d like to uh, fill you in on it all some time.”

“Juicy gossip?” Rachael asked as the four of them slid into a booth, already eyeing up the pictures on the menus. “We’re gonna have about, oh, I think what, seven hours in the car?”

“Yeah, about,” Noel agreed. 

“So you can fill us in too, if you want,” she finished, and then laughed at Adam’s expression. “Kidding! Kidding, of course. To be honest, I don’t really much care to know anyone’s gossip.” She frowned. “Well, no, that’s a lie. I love storm chaser gossip. Is it storm chaser gossip?”

“No,” Adam replied, bewildered. “No, uh, it’s about the town we were both born in.”

Rachael sighed. “Then keep it between you two: ignorance is bliss, they say.”

“Yeah.” Adam and Lucky exchanged a look, their faces half-hidden behind their menus.

“Text it to me?” Lucky mouthed, feigning deep interest in the picture of ‘Moons Over My Hammy’. Adam nodded. Lucky grinned, and with all the skill of a cultural attache’s son, deftly changing the subject to something more appealing and broad-ranging. 

The four of them chattered their way through breakfast - eggs and pancakes and bacon for Adam, which went a long way toward lifting his mood - and the bill, and Adam found by the time they were all walking back towards the truck he felt surprisingly cheerful and ready to face the day, all things considered. Just before he climbed in, he spared another knowing look across the car park toward the black SUV, and he could have sworn he saw Aziraphale wave cheerfully at him out of the windscreen.

With seven hours ahead of them to catch up, Adam and Lucky took advantage of the first hour to nap, snuggled down in their hoodies and leaned up against the windows. Outside, the fields of the midwestern US whipped by, and Noel and Rachael murmured conversation back and forth to one another in the front seat, intermittently lapsing into silence. Eventually, Noel turned the radio on, and quiet tones of country music permeated the truck.

Lucky was first to wake up, and when Adam blearily blinked his eyes open, the sun was higher in the sky and fluffy white clouds were piling up towards the stratosphere - cumulonimbus, a good sign for later. Across the seat, Lucky was watching Adam intently. “You still wanna look that paper up?” he asked, carefully arching an eyebrow.

It took Adam a minute to cotton on to the suggestion, bleary as he still was from his nap. “Oh. Yeah, uh, my phone doesn’t have -”

“No problem,” Lucky said quickly, eager and relieved all at once. “What kind of phone do you have?” Adam rummaged around in the pocket of his sweatshirt, eventually producing the device. “Cool. Can you turn on bluetooth? We can just local chat.” He paused. “To uh … send you the article.”

Adam blinked, shook himself, and set about adjusting the settings on his phone. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, uh, should be good to go now.”

Sure enough, a chat request popped up on the screen a second later. He accepted, and read the first message: ‘ _ So ok. we covered the whole parents thing already. what should i know about the whole heaven/hell thing? _ ’

He chewed his lip as he considered it. ‘ _ K, _ ’ he started, ‘ _ so i told satan to piss off. Remember? _ ’ Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other boy nod slightly. ‘ _ so i guess from what az and crowley told me some angels an demons an stuff were angry about that. but like a lot weren’t - i met this other demon one time and they weren’t anyway. but anyway so az and crowley also kind of helped so they were semi-forced to retire, which like who even knew you could do. _ ’

He’d never considered the whole ‘forced to retire’ story they had told him unusual, although in the intervening years he  _ had  _ wondered if it was the entire truth. But then, why not? Humans did it all the time, when someone had done something wrong in a company: forced retirement, golden parachute, enjoy your watch and pension. And Heaven and Hell, for all the unusual aspects he’d learned about over the years were … surprisingly corporate. So how strange was it then, them being retired, living on Earth for the rest of existence, however long that would be (and who, now, really knew? One being, and they weren’t telling)? Adam had shrugged and figured it sounded reasonable enough, and never gave it any additional thought.

As the fields rolled by outside, Adam continued to type, Lucky occasionally responding with short answers but mostly just watching the screen of his phone intently. If Noel and Rachael thought their behavior was unusual, they didn’t say anything, instead talking every now and again about this or that - the storm in Oklahoma and how it was looking better by the hour, the crack in the windshield, the state of traffic - and listening to the radio. Meanwhile, Adam spun out his knowledge of Heaven and Hell, the politics associated therewith, and the fallout resulting from the Nahpocalypse. He talked about Gabriel and Beelzebub, and how they had urged him to restart everything, even before Satan had shown up. 

And he talked about how after it was all over - after they’d come through the other side with a planet and a future and some kind of normalcy - Aziraphale and Crowley had stuck around. Partially, he knew, because the whole Apocalypse thing had been … a lot, but also, as Adam had come to realize with age, because they worried. He knew about the wards around him - around England, really - but they’d never told him exactly why. He had the feeling they hadn’t known, just had a looming suspicion that Heaven or Hell would take a shot at re-starting things if they had a chance. It looked like they’d been right.

After he’d spun the story out, he sighed, and let his head loll back against the headrest, ankles crossed and one foot bouncing. ‘ _ anyway _ ,’ he texted to Lucky after a while during which the two of them looked out of their windows in silent contemplation, ‘ _ thats the whole thing. theres other stuff i guess but thats like … the highlights. _ ’ He frowned at the phone screen and then tapped out. ‘ _ i should just go home. its me they want, not you guys, so if i bounce youll be fine im sure _ .’ He scowled at the phone. ‘ _ i just thought i was done with all this _ .’

He looked up when the other boy exhaled through his nose sharply, only to find Lucky glaring at him, dark eyes narrow. He held up one finger -  _ wait _ \- and then started typing, lightning-fast.

After a bit, Adam’s phone pinged. ‘ _ k first of all - yea it sucks that this is still going. youd think telling the actual devil to fuck off would have done it but apparently not. that sucks. but second of all, knock it off with the going home. selfishly, how do you know that if you go they wont just finish us off just for bein around _ ?’ Adam shrugged, got ready to type out his response to that, but his phone pinged again. ‘ _ and also, how would you get back????? _ ’

Adam blinked. He … hadn’t thought of that. ‘ _ Airplane _ ,’ he replied after a minute, simply. Of course an airplane.

‘ _ what makes you think they wouldnt like shoot it out of the sky tho? use wind to make it crash. _ ’

_ Oh _ . Adam swallowed. He hadn’t thought of that. Based on the available information, it seemed that they were trying to make any strike against him look like an accident, and nothing looked like an accident more than a tragic, freak weather-related plane crash. And if that happened, he thought with a chill, he  _ certainly _ wouldn’t be the only one killed. 

And they wouldn’t bat an eye, he thought then, on a darker level. Collateral damage. Just humans, after all: pawns in a game they didn’t understand - didn’t even know was going on. He looked up to Lucky, and the other boy raised an eyebrow. A moment later, Adam felt his phone buzz. 

‘ _ way i see it: if you stay here, i can help you. i had antichrist training, after all _ .’ Adam snorted and raised his thumbs to start tapping out a reply when another message came through: ‘ _ let’s draw them out here. we got both of us, and aziraphale and crowley, and crowley can stop time, so lets do it. im in. _ ’

Adam’s mouth twisted into a frown. He didn’t type a response, but he did look sidelong toward the front seat, arching his eyebrows up questioningly. Lucky nodded. ‘ _ we protect them. and anyone else. easier to do that than a whole plane, yea? _ ’

For a long time, Adam looked at his phone. His thumbs were raised over the keypad, and he tried to ignore that they were trembling, just a little. He took a breath, and steadied himself, and then shook his head. 

‘ _ ok. _ ’

\- 

Rachael and Noel must have noticed something, Adam figured. When Rachael called to him a few hours later, she was wary, and quieter than usual. “Guys?” 

He’d been looking out of the window, watching to the east this time, instead of the west. He could see that way out of the corner of his eye - Lucky was fixedly watching out of his own window in that direction - and that sky was dark and thick with clouds. But to the east it was still calm. Adam’s head was leaned against the glass, and although he knew the black clouds were building to the west, he kept his eyes fixed on the east, still all blue sunny skies above.

Rachael hadn’t turned around, but she was watching them in the rearview mirror. “You’ve been awful quiet today. Everything okay?”

Adam felt Lucky’s eyes on him from across the seat, but he didn’t turn around, not right away. Instead he said, “Yeah, I think just tired,” and then sat up, running his hand through his hair. He swallowed, though his mouth was dry, and worked up a grin, catching Rachael’s eyes in the mirror. “Looks good that way,” he said, finally shifting in his seat, the better to look out Lucky’s side of the car. 

Lucky was watching him, expression perfectly neutral. He didn’t look away when Adam looked over either, but he did raise an eyebrow and lift one shoulder in a half-shrug. As imperceptibly as he could without losing the message altogether, Adam nodded, and Lucky half-smiled at him in response before he jumped into the conversation. “Yeah,” he agreed, turning to look at the sky himself. “It’s dark. Um, I think … is it rotating to the southwest?”

The pair in the front seat, as one, leaned forward toward the windshield. Noel, eyes narrowed, bit his lip and frowned. “Might be. Yeah … yeah, you think, Rach? Either way, we should get south of it.”

“South or east?” she murmured, opening her computer and impatiently tapping the spacebar, trying to will it into starting up faster. “Let’s see, let’s see …”

“South,” Noel said, accelerating a little. “Definitely south.”

Rachael was frowning at the clouds while the laptop continued its ponderous boot-up, her leg bouncing as she waited. “I dunno … looks like a lot of precipitation.”

“You can see that from here?”

“Yeah - see the haze? And once I have radar …”

Lucky snickered and asked, quietly, “You see any rain?”

“From this far away? Nah,” Adam whispered, shaking his head. “What do you think, east or south?”

“Mmm …” Lucky considered it, watching the clouds carefully. “Dunno. It’s really dark to the south, which like, makes me think there probably  _ is _ rain down there -”

“Exactly!” Rachael cried from the front seat. “Thank you, Lucky!” Triumphant, she brandished her laptop and pointed to the thick green blob on the screen, south of the red and purple blob at the eye of the storm. “It’s a wet one - and honestly doesn’t look very tornadogenic. I don’t see any hooking at all.” She cocked her head.

Adam leaned in. “Maybe some weak rotation?” he suggested, trying to be encouraging.

“Maybe. Not lovin’ it.” She glanced out of the window. “Gonna be a hell of a storm, though. Probably have some decent lightning if we stay to the northeast.” Cautiously, she glanced back at Adam. “We can leave the instruments in the car today, I’ll just photograph -”

“It’s okay. Really.” He nodded. “I’m fine. It was … well, what are the odds, right?” Her expression relaxed into a softer smile, and he returned with a weak smile of his own. “I’ll be okay.”

“Well, just call it if you need to,” she said, gently. “No shame in it, alright? Right?”

“Right,” Lucky added, patting Adam on the shoulder. Adam found himself grinning at the other boy. “You got this.”

The truck bumped off of the road, slowing down as Noel pulled over. Once stopped, he leaned to Rachael’s side to study the laptop, chin propped on his fist. Finally, he grunted. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right.” With a vague wave of his hand toward the screen, he elaborated: “Doesn’t look like anything worth seeing to the south. Thing is, if we stay northeast, right, and it  _ does _ put down a tornado, we could be in the bear’s cage.”

“You think it’s really going to, though?” Rachael looked doubtful. In the backseat, Lucky and Adam both scooted forward and center, the better to see the radar for themselves. It looked like a fierce storm, but try as he might, Adam couldn’t find a hook that might hint at a tornado later. It didn’t completely exclude the possibility, of course. “I mean,” Rachael went on, “they only have a watch on it. Haven’t even fully warned it, yet.”

Hesitant at first, and then with more confidence as Noel and Rachael looked to him, open and encouraging, Lucky spoke up. “Okay but to the - to the north, right, there’s a lot? Just a general storm body. And it’s not spinning at all, I think? But it is big. So it  _ might _ be pretty good for lightning.” He shrugged. “I’m up for helping put the instruments out, if you want.”

“Me too,” Adam added, shooting a glance toward Lucky. “‘M fine. Promise.”

Rachael looked to Noel. “It’s a good point. And if we stay north of the worst of it, and keep an eye on the radar and the alerts, we should be able to avoid any tornadoes that  _ might _ happen.”

Noel looked uncertain. “They could be rain-wrapped.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’re gonna happen.” She pointed to the screen. “Maybe to the east, if this gets more organized, but we won’t outrun it to find out, not at rush hour.”

“Nah.” Noel put the truck back into gear, and pulled out onto the road carefully. Adam quickly checked in the side mirror, and was comforted to see a black SUV pulling out of a Jiffy Lube parking lot and falling into place behind them. “Alright. Northeast it is, then.”

Noel drove on, turning a bit away from the storm and putting it at their backs, leaving Adam and Lucky checking the side mirrors every few seconds to monitor the sky. It was getting dark, and the clear blue sky above had taken on the goldish cast that heralded an oncoming thunderstorm. Noel checked the mirrors too, with Rachael navigating based on the radar, until they cruised to a stop on a side road, flashers blinking. On either side of the road were cow pastures, neatly fenced-in, with long spring grass waving in the increasing wind.

“Okay.” Rachael waited for the group of them to gather at the back of the truck, and she herself stood with hands-on-hips, tailgate down. “So we can’t put anything in the pastures because of the animals and, uh … well, I’m not sure I love the idea of sitting them out along the shoulder of the road …”

Adam looked around, and aside from a remarkably-inconspicuous black SUV tucked into a driveway behind them - another deep breath, good, that’s good - there wasn’t much. Pasture and sky, stretching away on either side. To the east, a small smudge on the horizon that was likely the nearest town, but that was probably miles off. 

“I mean, it’s not exactly heavily populated around here,” he said hesitantly. “Not a lot of traffic.”

“Hm, maybe.” Rachael frowned, and looked to the south. A dirt driveway jutted off of the main road, winding back through the fields toward a farmhouse. “We could probably use that driveway -”

Noel grunted. “Private property.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She threw up her hands. “That’s fine - I haven’t seen a single cloud-to-ground bolt since we’ve been standing here, anyway. But I bet we can get some good time lapse of the storm rolling in, cloud formations, maybe some anvil crawlers, that kinda thing.” She lunged forward, rummaging around in the bed of the truck. “Alright, Adam, I want you to take the long lens. Noel, here’s your stuff, and Lucky, let’s get the time lapse cameras set up. We could do two angles, even, if you want to stay here, and I can wander off down that way …”

Rachael and Noel, apparently satisfied with the distribution of labor, confirmed that the students knew what they were to do, and then strolled off, Noel toward the driveway down the road and Rachael a bit back from the truck, well within shouting distance in the event of questions or instructions. Lucky and Adam stood at the back tailgate of the truck, and made a show of opening the camera bags and rustling through the equipment.

“You sure you’re alright?” Lucky murmured, setting up the tripod as he did. 

“I … yeah.” Adam swallowed as he fiddled with the lens on the camera aimlessly. “I think. I’m not sure I’ll … I mean, if there’s lightning I might …”

“No one will blame you if you hop in the truck if things get wild.” Lucky elbowed him. “Right? It’s fine.”

Adam nodded. “Yeah, I know. I just worry about you guys, is all.”

Lucky, focused on the camera and peering through the lens, grinned. “Aw, that’s sweet of you.” He paused for a minute to glance back down the road, toward the hulking blackness of the SUV lying in wait. “I think between you and them, though …”

“Mm.” Adam sighed. He looked through the camera lens and focused on the distant structure of a barn, dwarfed by the thunderheads above. “I’m gonna have to fill you in more on  _ them _ , too, I guess.” He exhaled sharply, grinning and shaking his head a little before re-focusing on the shot and snapping a few more pictures. “Crowley and Aziraphale are good people but they are … okay, you know that phrase ‘two halves of a whole idiot’?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s them.”

“Huh.” Thunder rumbled overhead, but the only lightning they could see was in the clouds, flickering against the dark backdrop. Lucky frowned. “Okay, now I see the rain. This is gonna be a good time lapse.”

“Looks like just a bloody big rain storm,” Adam said with a huff. “It looked better on radar.”

Lucky was quiet for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay to turn it back on you, you know what they say about fishing?”

Adam, who knew that the ubiquitous ‘they’ said many different things about fishing, hedged. “Maybe?”

“S’why it’s called fishing, not catching.” He waved a hand toward the clouds, careful not to mess up his shot. “Guess that’s why they call it storm  _ chasing _ , and not storm … finding?”

Adam snorted. “Prob’ly something like that, yeah.” He zoomed in a bit. “I think it’s got hail, though.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” With the time lapse set in place, Lucky stepped away from it, arms crossed over his chest, meandering around to Adam’s left side and leaning against the back of the truck. “It did look potentially ugly on radar.” His phone squealed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to check the alert. “Hm, tornado warned.”

“Really?” Adam asked, frowning even as he continued to photograph. “Bit of a reach, don’t you think?”

“Better safe, I guess.”

They watched the storm together in silence for another minute, before Adam whistled. “Definitely hail - I can see it around the house now.”

“How big?”

“Can’t tell.” He glanced away from the camera for a moment, down the road toward Rachael. “Maybe you should -”

Lucky had noted Adam’s look, and was already jogging down the road toward Rachael before the other boy could finish. Adam watched for a second while the two of them talked briefly, and then Rachael started packing up her time lapse equipment, Lucky helping her break the set-up down and pack it away. Adam turned back to the lens, snapped a few more photos - white hail now coated the ground around the farmhouse - and paused. 

“Hey, Noel?” he called toward the man, maybe a quarter of a mile down the road, working with his own camera near the farmhouse driveway. “Noel!”

Thunder rumbled more loudly overhead, and between that and the wind, Adam wondered if he’d heard. “Noel!” he tried again, louder still, but when that garnered no response he frowned. Surely the man must see the hail, right? He was photographing the same storm … 

“He never hears anything, I swear.” Rachael and Lucky had made their way back to the truck and were packing her camera back into the bed among the other instruments. 

“Here.” Adam handed the long lens camera over to Lucky. “I wanna make sure he knows about the hail. I couldn’t really tell but uh, it seemed kind of … well, look.” Even from the road they could make out the white coating of the hail all around the farmhouse, creeping slowly closer to them as the storm churned its way east. “I’m just gonna run and tell him.”

Rachael looked bemused. “That’s thoughtful of you, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.” She caught sight of Adam’s worried expression, however, and shrugged. “But go ahead: I’m sure he’ll appreciate the warning. I think we should start breaking down your setup too, by the way, Lucky. Can you see how big the hailstones are through the long lens?”

“It’s hard to tell,” Lucky said, before he set the camera down on the tailgate, and started helping Rachael with his time-lapse. Adam took advantage of the pause in conversation and started jogging toward Noel, loose shoelaces slapping the pavement as he ran. Rain started to patter down, and then small hailstones - smaller than peas - and he winced, raising his arms to shield himself, when they started to pelt his head. 

He was definitely within shouting range of Noel when a brown sedan nearly side-swiped him on its way by. “Oy!” he yelled after it, glaring at the red tail lights. “Watch it,” he grumbled, resuming his jog. “Hey Noel? It’s uh, it’s hailing.”

This close, Adam could see the man’s wry smile. Noel didn’t move. “I noticed. Weird though, isn’t it? It looks like there’s a band of heavier hail coming along behind, too.” Adam heard the shutter click as he snapped a few more pictures. “Odd-looking storm, that’s for sure.”

Shifting from one foot to the other, Adam said, “It’s been tornado-warned too.” He tried to throw a bit of urgency into his tone. The camera shutter clicked again. He glanced toward the clouds: still no lightning, but the hail was getting large enough now that every time he felt a stone flick on his neck or head, he flinched. 

“You see any rotation, Adam?”

“No. Do, uh, do you think we should head back to the truck?” He looked toward the darkening sky, and then flinched his head back down when a hailstone caught him on the bridge of his nose. 

“Maybe. Just want to get a couple more -”

The first big stone -  _ really  _ big stone, nearly the size of an orange - slammed into the pavement and rolled to their feet. Noel blinked at it for a second. “Shit,” said Adam, earnestly.

“Yeah, you know, let’s head back toward the truck,” said Noel, and they ran.

As it turned out, the orange-sized stone was just the prelude. The two of them ran side-by-side, arms clenched protectively over their heads, while all around them grapefruit-sized stones pounded into the road. Adam could have sworn he saw some cracks forming in the asphalt, but surely that had to have been his imagination, he assured himself, while the red bulk of the truck grew blessedly nearer. Even hailstones this large couldn’t crack pavement, not unless they were  _ thrown _ -

His train of thought jumped the tracks as a hailstone slammed into his elbow, drawing a yelp from him and, briefly, prompting him to drop his arms away from his head to inspect the damage. “Arms up!” Noel shouted over the din of ice crashing around them, and he reached out to grab Adam’s arm, to draw it back up to where it ought to be.

Another hailstone caught Noel on the eyebrow and sent him sprawling to the ground. “Shit!” Adam yelled, sliding to a stop on the round stones that were starting to cover the road. He spun as quickly as he could without falling, reaching out to help Noel up, but the stormchaser was already clambering to his feet, blood streaming down his face. “Oh shit you’re -”

“I’m fine, keep moving!” 

Adam did, and Noel did, the two of them hunched down protectively, guarding their heads, until they had swung up into the truck and out of the storm. Not that the truck was any quieter, mind, with the hail pounding the roof with a mindless, relentless fury. “Holy shit,” Rachael groaned, as soon as she saw Noel, half his face red with his own blood. “Oh, shit, is it bad? Let me see.”

“It’s fine.” He waved her off and handed her the camera. “See if that’s damaged. Lucky, uh, I think there’s a roll of paper towels under the seat in front of you.” He sat back in the driver’s seat a moment later, still breathing heavily, had the towels pressed to his forehead, fresh blood still staining them slowly in spite of the pressure. He grimaced as another stone - getting smaller again now - hit the front of the truck, and another web of cracks spidered through the glass. “Well, so much for doing anything tomorrow - we’re not going anywhere until this windshield’s fixed.”

Rachael hummed. “Your camera’s fine,” she added, tossing it back into Noel’s lap. “Unlike your  _ head _ . Didn’t Adam tell you there was hail coming?” The question, judging by the exasperated look she gave Noel, and the almost apologetic shrug she aimed toward Adam, was rhetorical. “Why didn’t you come back sooner?”

“He did.” Noel sighed. “Thanks, Adam. Should have listened, huh? But I never  _ seen _ hail like that, have you?” Rachael shook her head. “Just changing size so fast, an’ then the way it was falling, like it was bein’ thrown or something.” He realized that as they’d been talking, the hail had abated, and he was still shouting, louder now than needed over the steady drum of rain on the truck. “Sorry.”

In the back seat, Lucky looked to Adam, a little wide-eyed. Adam felt his cheeks flush red, and he frowned, looking away. Up front and unawares, Rachael said, “It’s alright. Are you still bleeding?” Noel moved the towel aside, and a trickle of blood immediately ran down his face. Lucky winced, and Adam clenched his jaw. “Yikes. I dunno, that might need some stitches.” She pulled a map up on her phone and started searching for nearby hospitals. “Looks like there’s an emergency room about ten minutes away. Let’s swap, I should drive.”

As the two of them ran around the front of the truck, Noel with the towel still pressed to his forehead, Lucky looked over to Adam. “Listen,” he said hurriedly, “I’m sure it’s not really anything -”

“Oh you’re  _ sure _ ?” Adam crossed his arms and glared out of the window.

“Adam, it’s weather, it’s unpredict -”

“I’m not talking about it.” Fully aware that he was behaving like a petulant teenager, Adam slumped back against the seat and stared fixedly out of the window. He could feel Lucky watching him for a minute, and was  _ very _ conscious of his phone buzzing shortly thereafter, as the truck pulled back onto the road, hospital-bound. But even so, he kept his arms crossed, left his phone in his pocket, and said nothing.


	16. Impromptu hospital parking lot therapy sessions are more common that you think

As it turned out, after an evaluation and a CT scan in the local emergency department, Noel needed stitches. “Really kind of miraculous,” the bemused nurse practitioner said while she scrubbed the wound and set out the tray of suturing equipment, “that that’s all. A stone that size, to leave a gash like that, and no concussion? You’re a lucky guy.”

Noel shrugged. “Guess so. You’re gonna do some lidocaine or something, right?”

“Oh, certainly.” The woman was drawing up a clear solution into a syringe. “And I’ll be real nice and let it sit for a minute before we get started -”

Adam had been sitting in the corner, half-huddled in the plastic chair. As the syringe filled, he shook himself and stood up, slowly, not abrupt or stiff. As easily as he could manage, he said, “Think I’m gonna step out front for some fresh air.”

Lucky, who was seated in one of the plastic exam room chairs next to him, looked up from Rachael’s laptop; the two of them had been busy studying the lightning footage from the day before while they’d waited, intermittently remarking on how weird the bolts had been. His brow furrowed. “You want company?”

“No,” said Adam. “I, er. Just don’t like needles. Sorry,” he added as an afterthought, before he pushed open the exam room door and started for the car park. He wove through nurses and patients, and did his best to hold it together as he crossed the waiting room. He didn’t bother to look at the nurse at the triage desk who opened her mouth as he went past, and finally stepped out into the cool, calm night air. He took a deep breath and walked a little more slowly away from the hospital, until he came across a row of bushes some designer had probably tastefully placed to add a bit of greenery and, more importantly, control traffic flow. 

It was only after he’d sat on the curb, checked all around to make sure he was alone, and taken another deep breath that he started to cry. Just a little, at first, mostly quietly interspersed with the occasional sniffle, tears prickling the corner of his eyes.  _ I said no _ , he thought, as a bigger sob threatened to hitch in his chest.  _ I said no, it was supposed to be over, it was supposed to be over, it was supposed to be  _ over … 

He kept repeating it to himself like a mantra, even as the dam burst and great, ugly sobs broke out of him, eyes streaming and nose running. He was alone, but he drew his knees up, wrapped his arms around them and tucked his head down, out of sight. His shoulders heaved, he gasped to breathe through the crying and thought, over and over,  _ it was supposed to be over. _

Softly, he heard the scrape of someone sitting down on the concrete curb next to him. On his next great gasp, before he could look up, he caught a whiff of a familiar smell: brimstone and leather and a distinctive cologne recommended by a barber in Soho. 

He bothered to look just enough to confirm the new person was who he thought it was - it was, all in black with sunglasses, even though it was dark by now - before lunging to his left and wrapping his arms around the demon. Crowley stiffened a little, but then carefully extricated his right arm, the better to wrap it around Adam’s shoulders and pull the boy in closer. Another wave of sobs broke out of Adam, and he held Crowley tighter, his face pressed into the demon’s black t-shirt and soaking it with tears. 

“It was su - supposed to be over,” he managed after a while, when he felt like he could breathe. He was still crying, oh yes, but he wasn’t gulping in air like a drowning man anymore. “I thought it was.”

“Me too,” Crowley answered simply, patting Adam on the shoulder. 

Adam keened, pressing his forehead harder against Crowley’s shoulder, as if he might manage to phase out of existence and hide in the demon’s essence for a while. Crowley shushed him, moving his hand up to smooth Adam’s hair down, swaying a little side-to-side. “I want it to be over,” Adam managed after a few more hiccuping sobs. “Why won’t it just be over?”

“Dunno, kid. We’re working on it.”

The boy took another deep breath then, shaky but determined, and said in a very small voice, barely audible over the general bustle of the car park, “I want to go home.”

Crowley was quiet for a minute, his arm still around Adam, the two of them sitting on the curb. “I’m sure,” he said at length, slowly, thinking about it the whole while, “Aziraphale could fly you home. If that’s what you really want.”

He looked up toward the demon then, blue eyes watery and wide and confused. “What about you?”

“I can get a plane, no trouble.” Crowley shrugged. “Flew over here, didn’t I?”

“No,” Adam said, shaking his head firmly. “No, I want … I think with both of you I’ll feel better.” He pulled away a little, reluctantly letting go of the skinny demon and wrapping his arms back around his knees. “Lucky said if we fly on a plane, all three of us together, they might shoot it down or whatever. Michael and Hastur.”

Crowley made a few noises and finished with, “It’s a distinct possibility.”

Adam shook his head again. “Can’t have that. And what about Lucky and Rachael and Noel? I can’t just leave them alone. What if … if someone decides to finish off any connections, I mean, it could be …” he trailed off, unable to make himself finish the sentence. “No,” he said instead, before he swiped the back of his hand across his face and smeared the tear-tracks away. “But not like they’re safer with me.”

“How was Noel?” Crowley asked. Now that Adam had pulled away, he had stretched his legs out, hands on his knees. He was staring off into the parking lot, not at anything in particular. “Those hailstones came up quickly.”

“Just needed stitches. No concussion or anything.” Adam sniffled. “Crowley, I’m gonna ask a question, and I don’t want you to get - get mad, or freak out, or like, think I’m crazy or anything.”

That got Crowley’s attention. He looked toward Adam, over the rims of his glasses, unblinking and attentive. “Alright,” he said, deliberately.

Adam considered what he was about to say very carefully. He didn’t want Crowley to think he was especially serious, or that he  _ wanted _ to go down this path, but then if it kept other people safe, that would be what he wanted more than anything. “If I accepted my role as the Antichrist,” he said, voice low and slow, “would they leave everyone alone? I could use my powers and get rid of Hastur and Michael then, and they’d leave everyone alone.”

Crowley’s answer came quickly, and his tone was grim. “No, they wouldn’t.” He took a moment, picked at a non-existent spot of lint on his jeans, and continued, “Because Adam, if you did that - and trust me, I see where you’re coming from, but listen - if you did that, Armageddon would start properly again. It’s not just Hastur and Michael then, Adam. There’s still plenty in the ranks of Heaven and Hell that would jump at the chance to fight in a Great War, and Earth and humans be damned or blessed or however you want to put it.” He flicked the invisible lint away. “Hastur and Michael are just the only two that are brave enough to take a run at you properly.”

“Then what do I do?” Adam groaned. Suddenly, the flickering anger in him flared, and he kicked out at a patch of loose gravel in the parking space before them, scattering rocks and listening as they went  _ plink _ against the bumper of the car there. “It’s not fair! I didn’t want - I  _ don’t _ want any of this! And I said no, and I said I didn’t want it and I turned it all down! So why is it still  _ happening _ ?” He was shouting, and for the most part, he didn’t care. Crowley let him too, just watching with a sad, twisted expression, his hands still folded in his own lap. 

“I hate this! I hate it and I hate that it has to be me, and I hate that this is happening! I hate that I can’t just  _ leave _ , because people might get hurt, and I hate that I’m afraid to stay because people already got hurt!” He kicked viciously at the gravel again. “I  _ hate this _ !” He spun on Crowley, who didn’t flinch, didn’t even move, and yelled, “ _ Why does it have to be me _ ?”

Crowley sighed. “I’m sorry, Adam, I really am. But I can’t change it.”

“I thought I could!” He wove his fingers through the hair at his temples, pulling at it. “I thought I did! But I’m always going to be … be the bloody Antichrist, apparently, until I die! Probably even after! I don’t want to be!” He yelled then, wordless and primal, and that made Crowley flinch a little because there was … something in it, something not entirely human. Adam felt it at the back of his throat, thick and cloying like oil or grease, but he snarled and forced it back down, focusing hard on the twisting of his fingers in his hair. 

For a long time - Adam wasn’t sure how long, really, because he just wanted to sit and fade away into nothing, while the hubbub of the emergency room parking lot moved on around him - Crowley was very quiet. He wasn’t even breathing, Adam thought, and he wished he could do the same as another wave of crying threatened to bubble up from his chest. He sniffled instead, and ground the heel of his hand into his eye socket, biting his tongue and forcing the tears back. 

“I’m a demon, you know,” Crowley said eventually, breaking the heavy silence. Adam paused, and turned to glower at him.

“ _ No _ , really?”

“And the thing about demons,” Crowley went on, apparently ignoring Adam’s snide remark, “is we’re supposed to be evil. Supposed to be in our nature, innit? After all, we fell from being angels because of rebellion, or pride, or wrath, or what have you, and becoming a demon was supposed to just  _ magnify _ all that, wasn’t it?” Adam didn’t say anything then, just watched Crowley warily, and Crowley, without acknowledging him, went on, “But you know the funny thing, Adam, was before I Fell, I was … pretty much the same person I am now. Becoming a demon didn’t  _ make _ me evil, it didn’t  _ make _ me want to kill humans and punish sin or what have you. And if I’m honest, I don’t think anyone else was  _ made _ to feel those things either. They were just expected to. And it got me wondering, eons ago, what the difference between angels and demons really  _ is _ .” 

Adam was silent, and Crowley went on: “See, the longer I’m around, the more I think being an angel or being a demon isn’t so much about being good or bad, but more about, er … well, about what you want to do. Does that make sense?” He didn’t stop to see if Adam nodded or shook his head. “Are you willing to give yourself over to a higher power - God, alright, God - and accept that everything that happens is just the way it is because She said so? Or do you … want to know why? Or why not, in some cases.” He shrugged. “S’all it is, I think, really. Because there’s sure as shit bad angels, and I dunno, haven’t met many good demons, most of ‘em are bastards, but then so’re most angels, so make of that what you will.” He shrugged again, and this time he did look to Adam to see the boy’s reaction. “You get what I’m saying?”

Adam blinked. “I … you’re a good demon,” he said, because he wasn’t really sure what else to say. “Mostly. I mean, you’re not  _ evil _ evil, is my point, at least not that I’ve seen, an’ -”

“And  _ that _ is exactly what I’m saying,” Crowley said, prodding Adam in the chest. “You are what you are, regardless of what you actually  _ are _ . I’m a demon, but it doesn’t mean I’ve got to use my powers for murder, or torture, or whatever. I mean bless it, I can do  _ miracles _ . I used to cover for Aziraphale and no one was ever the wiser! And Aziraphale used to cover for me!” He threw up his hands. “You see? So it doesn’t  _ really  _ matter, not really, what the label is, it’s what you do with what you’ve got.”

Adam rubbed his eye. “Right. I … I still use my powers,” he confessed. “But only for little stuff. Stuff that doesn’t matter.”

“Right, because you’re a decent kid, Antichrist or not.” Crowley raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Knew about the powers thing, by the way.”

“You never said anything.”

“Didn’t seem important. Like you said, it was all only little stuff.” He looked carefully to the sky. “And I’m sure if you used them for … certain things, little or not, neither Aziraphale nor I would say a word about it.”

Adam’s brow furrowed. “Good stuff, you mean?”

“Hm. Ye-es. Don’t tell Aziraphale I said that.”

“I won’t.” He slumped sideways, against Crowley’s shoulder. “Hastur and Michael are still trying to kill me,” he said, after heaving a big sigh. He rubbed at his nose, which had started to itch. “I mean, I get what you’re saying about good and evil and all that, choosing who you want to be, I think, and that’s well and good but … but they’re still trying to kill me.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “And why can’t you do a bit to protect yourself, hm? Sure, Aziraphale and I are here, we’ll keep an eye on Lucky and the, the two other humans, whatever their names are, but you’re  _ not _ powerless against this, Adam.”

“You’re not going to watch me?” He looked up, brow furrowed.

“Never said that. We’ll watch you as well, of course. Whole reason we stalked you over here, wasn’t it?” Crowley jostled him with his shoulder, gently. “Keep you out of trouble.”

Traffic hummed by in the street, and Adam paused, replayed a few key bits of the conversation, and said, very slowly, “You’ve been following me the whole time, haven’t you?”

Crowley froze. “Uh.” He swallowed, and looked down at Adam leaning against him, grimacing a little. “Maybe. A bit. We had no idea this would happen,” he added quickly, raising his hands in a defensive position. “But we were … worried. You haven’t left the boundaries of the wards by yourself before, and it was just a little …” He trailed off. “Listen, we shouldn’t have done it, we should have told you, yes, I know, but Adam keep in mind we’ve both been around a  _ very long time _ and we’re dealing with things that aren’t exactly run-of-the-mill and -”

Adam cut him off. “I’m glad you came.” He sighed and looked back to his sneakers. “S’weird like, I wish you hadn’t, ‘cause I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t need my godfathers breathing down my neck every waking minute, but then with everything going on I’m glad … I’m glad you’re here.”

“We were determined to leave you alone unless you really needed us,” Crowley pointed out. “But in the event that something happened, I wouldn’t be able to fly over here in any kind of timely fashion, so it would’ve been up to Aziraphale alone, and he wouldn’t have it. Insisted we stick close.”

“Sounds about right.” Adam thoughtfully bumped the toes of his shoes together. “So what now? I … I just use my powers or whatever? Can I summon Hastur? He’s a demon, right? I should be able to summon him.”

“I wouldn’t,” Crowley warned. “If he wants to come to you that’s one thing, but Hastur’s not the bravest demon around. I think it’s Michael you need to be worried about, really, and not much you or I can do about that.”

Adam shook his head. “So we’re running defense.”

“We’re running defense,” Crowley confirmed with a nod. As he went on he waved his hands, demonstrating his point. “Keeping alert, paying attention, being observant, constant vigilance, you kn -”

“Oh, fuck,” Adam breathed, eyes widening suddenly. He was looking across the parking lot, toward the halogen lights of the emergency room entrance, frozen. Crowley snapped around to look, but anything wouldn’t be in time, there wasn’t enough time -

A little girl, still wearing a hospital gown over pink pajama pants, had evidently escaped the ward. Back in the lobby there were adults looking for her - security and nurses and, presumably, two plain-clothes individuals that were her parents - but she was already out of the front door and trotting unsteadily across the dark car park, directly into the path of a large pickup truck speeding in on a beeline for the emergency room entrance. They watched her look to the truck, her little round face bathed in butter-yellow headlights, and the two of them scrambled to stand up, Crowley’s hand halfway through a snap, but -

The truck stopped. No blaring horn, no screeching tires, just stopped cold, as if it hadn’t ever been moving to start with. The little girl stared at the grill for a minute, and then started to cry as the hospital staff and her parents tumbled through the doors in a pack, rushing over to her and scooping her up to safety. The truck’s driver jumped out as well, pale and shaken, apologizing, making sure the girl was alright. 

“Wow,” said Adam, blinking. “Nice one, Crowley.” He looked to the demon, registered how pale he looked, and froze. “Crowley?”

“Wasn’t me,” Crowley said, faintly. “It was … definitely an angel. A real miracle like that, had to be an angel.”

Something twisted in his guts, and Adam fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt. “Aziraphale?” he suggested. 

Crowley had already spun on his heel, striding through the bushes and toward the now-familiar black SUV. “Had to be. Angel?” He drew even with the passenger side window, and started to rap on it with a frantic sort of energy. The twisting feeling in his belly was sinking now, and Adam noted that Aziraphale was reading; definitely not paying any attention at all to the parking lot.

“Yes?” Aziraphale asked as he popped open the door of the car. “What - are you alright?” Crowley pointed weakly toward the still-stopped truck, the little girl and all of the people around her, and Aziraphale’s attention followed the gesture. “Good Lord!” He jumped out of the car and started for the crowd, but Crowley caught him on the shoulder. “What happened?” he asked, spinning around to face the two of them. “Is someone hurt? If - well, I know there’s a hospital right here, but if there’s anything I can do -”

“So you haven’t done anything yet?” Crowley asked, quietly. “Not a single miracle in the last five minutes?”

“Did you stop the truck?” Adam added, watching the crowd warily, desperately reaching out with his senses - any of them, anything he could - to try to find an angel among them. But no, nothing, at least nothing that he could detect. 

“No.” Aziraphale started to tug at his waistcoat and fuss at the cuffs of his shirt. “No. Did … did someone?”

Crowley nodded solemnly. “Stopped right before it hit the kid. A  _ real  _ miracle. I felt it, but it wasn’t me, and if it wasn’t you, then it was … who?”

Aziraphale looked around, as if something might become apparent. “Another angel, certainly. But there’s not anything more than we’ve been sensing this entire time,” he concluded after a minute. “Faint. It’s not anything I can quantify or identify conclusively, but there’s  _ definitely _ been another angel here.”

“Michael?” Adam asked, unconsciously looking back over his shoulder. “Was it Michael?”

As one, Crowley and Aziraphale shook their heads. “No, no that’s not Michael’s style,” Aziraphale said firmly. “Perhaps it was the child’s guardian?” he suggested.

Crowley looked doubtful. “Would you still be able to sense a guardian? Didn’t think they generally hung around. Places to go, people to see, wiles to thwart, all that.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale admitted, wringing his hands. “Yes, that would usually be the case. And whoever the angel was, they’re certainly still around. It’s just so faint, I can’t get a proper position on them.” He scowled, and then shook his head as if to shake the expression and the frustration away.

“Is that good or bad?” Adam asked, hesitating for a second before he spoke. “Like, does that mean they’re not very powerful, or … ?”

“It could,” Crowley answered with a nervous little cough. “Or they could be  _ extremely _ powerful and be hiding it. Based on  _ that _ -” he waved his hand toward the cluster of people, now heading back into the hospital, and the driver slinking back into his truck, “- I would favor the latter.”

Aziraphale jumped in with, “Which is another strike against Michael: Michael isn’t exactly one to be subtle about divine interventions.”

“So who is it?” Adam asked, glancing from one to the other.

Aziraphale’s jaw set. “I don’t know. But I’d very much like to find out.”

The truck pulled away, more sedately now, under the overhang in front of the emergency room. “I think,” Adam said quietly, “I’d like to go back inside with everyone now. The rest of the storm chasers, I mean. And Lucky.”

“You want us to stick closer?” offered Crowley, before Adam had to ask them. The boy nodded in response, and Crowley started toward the entrance, Adam falling into step on his right, with Aziraphale on the teen’s other side. “No healing anyone in the waiting room, angel,” Crowley said as they stepped through the sliding doors.

“Why not?”

“You gotta, you know.” Crowley shrugged. “Save your strength or something, in case we need it. What if bloody Hastur comes through the front door and you’re rinsed because you fixed everyone’s sinusitis?”

The angel frowned. “I think that’s unlikely.”

Crowley spread his hands, demonstrating the whole of their surroundings. “And what, prithee, is likely about  _ any of this _ ?”

They came to a second set of double-doors, and Adam paused. “Um. They’ll let me in, because I’m with Noel, but unless you guys want to introduce yourselves …”

“No one will notice us.” Crowley grinned. “Believe it or not, we’re good at that.”

“I don’t,” Adam sniped, as the doors swung open and the three of them walked through. “Can’t say I ever realized -  _ ow _ .” He reached up to rub the skin behind his ear, where Crowley had flicked him. “Rude.”

“Yeah, well, m’a demon.” He shrugged, hands spread. “What can you do?” He gestured to Noel’s room, and gave Adam a gentle push toward the door, which was slightly ajar. Just visible around the curtain was Lucky, rapt on the laptop screen in front of him. “Go on, we’ll be right here.”

Adam looked back over his shoulder at the two of them before he stepped through the door, Crowley leaned against the nurses’ desk and Aziraphale ram-rod straight, glancing around and keeping his hands firmly in his pockets, shoulder-to-shoulder. “You’ll tell me if you figure anything out, right?”

Aziraphale nodded, and Crowley saluted lazily. “Will do,” Aziraphale confirmed. “And, er, if you could do the same, I’m sure Crowley’s cellular telephone -”

“He knows how to call me, angel, honestly.”

“Yeah, I do.” Adam chuckled a little, one hand on the door handle, and paused once more to look back. “And thanks,” he said quickly. “For … stalking me, I guess.”

“Doing our duty as creepy occult godfathers,” Crowley replied solemnly. “Go on, before they think you’re talking to a wall.”

It was only after the door snapped shut behind the boy that Aziraphale looked over to Crowley, expression sour. “I’ve told you before, angels aren’t occult, we’re -”

“Yeah, yeah, you know occult can also mean hidden or unseen though, right?” Crowley looked smug. “So angel or not, whatever’s out there in the parking lot, until proven otherwise, is  _ occult _ .”

Aziraphale looked away in favor of scanning the tracking board hung above the nursing station with all of the patient complaints and room numbers on it. “Yes, well.  _ I’m  _ ethereal, though.”

“Of course, angel.” Crowley leaned over and landed a quick peck on Aziraphale’s cheek, startling him out of his tracking-board study. “You’re always ethereal to me.”


	17. Shakespeare in the Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We continue with our mildly less intense interlude for one more chapter before we pop back off again.

Breakfast the next morning was a quiet, almost morose affair: they had started the day by taking the now-windshield-less truck to a mechanic, and Noel had received the unwelcome news that it would take all day to get the right replacement windshield, meaning the truck likely wouldn’t be ready to go until the next morning. The mechanic had been kind enough about it, even offered them a loaner car for the day, but Noel and Rachael’s disappointment was still palpable. It was the best they could do though, and so they’d reluctantly accepted. In the parking lot outside of the shop, the storm chasers and the boys shuffled the necessary things out of the truck and into the trunk of the car before piling in and driving, in silence, to a local diner.

“Suppose,” said Noel slowly, peering reflectively into his coffee cup, “you two have a free day again. Oklahoma City’s a nice place; could be worse.”

Lucky sighed. “I guess there’s not good odds of a storm here in the city today, huh?” Quickly, he added, “Not that I want a tornado or anything, obviously, but even some lightning …”

“Blue sky bust,” Rachael confirmed, downcast. She took a drink of her own coffee. “Bound to have a few, so I guess with the truck in the shop it’s as good a day for one as any.” She winced. “But … you know we missed a tornado last night, guys?” A chorus of disappointed groans sounded around the table, although Adam didn’t really  _ feel _ all that disappointed; they’d had enough excitement last night, as far as he was concerned. Rachael nodded in confirmation. “‘Fraid so. Outside of Amarillo. Didn’t hit anything, but it was gorgeous - a friend of mine sent me a video.”

Lucky leaned forward, his coffee cup cradled in both hands. “Can we see?”

While Rachael fiddled with her phone, Lucky’s eyes flickered to Adam, full of concern. In response, Adam took a sip of coffee and said, “Yeah, I’d like to check it out if you have it. If it’s okay.”

“‘Course it is.” She pulled the video up soon enough, and the group settled into silence as they watched on the small screen. “The first part’s the lightning around it that started up before it touched down. She’s not much into lightning herself, more focused on hail research actually - hah, we should have switched places last night - but she knows I like it. If there’s ever anything particularly spectacular, she makes sure to film a bit of it if she can and send it my way.”

“She flirting with you?” Noel teased, uninjured eye fixed on the screen. The injured one probably was too, of course, but the swelling and the bandages made it difficult to tell.

Rachael shrugged. “Probably - she’s been after me for years.” Noel spluttered into his orange juice while Lucky, Rachael, and Adam exchanged wicked grins. “Don’t ask if you don’t want the answer, Noel. Anyway, it’s nice lightning. Nothing like we saw the other day - it’s much more … normal.” Her grin wavered. “But, you know. It’s nice. She got a really good shot of some upward leaders that never made connection, and then after the storm moved on she even got some sprites. Keep watching, you’ll see ‘em.”

They all agreed, as breakfast arrived, that it was indeed nice, normal lightning. Still, as they watched, Adam shifted uncomfortably at the realization of just  _ how _ different it was from the storm they’d experienced two days ago. The bolts were random, scattered around the landscape and originating from a variety of places within the body of the storm. Nothing like … like the  _ targeted _ strikes from the other day.

Targeted. Adam swallowed his mouthful of hash uneasily.  _ Targeted for me _ , he thought, and then scooped up another forkful and took a deep breath. Yes, alright, they had been targeted, but he could still do something. He  _ would _ do something. He swallowed the second bite of hash decisively, as if trying to wash his anxiety down with it, and took a swig of coffee for good measure. 

The tornado came a bit later in the video and, true to what Rachael had told them, was a beautiful wedge that glided down from the meso to crawl across the scrubland. It didn’t waste time growing into a dark, thick thing probably a quarter of a mile across, and it moved ponderously slow, meandering its way over the scrub for a good five minutes before roping out and dissipating.

“That was a pretty one,” Noel agreed around a mouthful of egg-sodden toast. “Should have started earlier and kept driving, I guess.”

Rachael heaved a sigh and tucked her phone away. “That’s storm chasing for you. I really thought the storm last night would produce something - it looked like it.”

Noel snorted. “Other than hail, you mean?”

Adam took another gulp of coffee. Under the table, Lucky kicked his ankle. “Yeah,” Rachael laughed. “Other than hail. Hey, but you’re going to have a cool scar. You’ll have to think of an exciting story to tell people about how you got it.”

“Shark attack,” Lucky suggested, automatically.

“Cooler than chasing a tornado and getting hit by grapefruit-sized hail?” Noel looked dubious. “Not cool enough for you, hm? You’ve been hanging around too many storm chasers.” That earned a few laughs from around the table, and the conversation moved on from storms to plans for the day. Noel figured he would spend the day at the motel to recover*, and Rachael said she would probably find a nice park to work in. She had a paper to work on, after all, and she wanted to go through the last few days’ worth of video and data to see if there was anything in there that seemed worth analyzing and including. 

[ * _ “You see if they have a pool?” he’d asked, and Rachael had pointed to her own eyebrow. “Really good tan lines, for sure,” she’d said. _ ]

When the attention of the group turned to him, Adam shrugged. “Was uh, thinking I might do some reading. There’s a library, yeah? I know we have a few books with us, but I was thinking I might see if they have anything in there about … about lightning, or -”

“You know, great idea, Adam!” Lucky cut him off and, Adam noted, was pulling out his phone. “Think I’d like to join you, if that’s ok? Someone told me one time the library here’s supposed to be really nice.”

“Oh, yeah.” Adam blinked a few times. “S’fine. What -”

Lucky was tapping at his phone busily. “I’m gonna call us a ride!” Apparently as an afterthought, he dug around in his other pocket and produced a handful of bills, easily enough for his meal and - “I got you today, man, since I’m hitching with you.”

Rachael looked amused. “Not that I want to, you know, dissuade any learning you might be wanting to do - you’re our students, after all - there’s other stuff to do in the city. I’ve been here before; there’s a cowboy museum, for example.”

“Really?” Noel looked thoughtful. “Never knew about that …”

“You  _ would _ like that.” Rachael rolled her eyes. “Anyway, if that’s not your speed I’m sure you could do … do indoor skydiving, or uh, what was on one of the billboards on the side of the road ... I think it said Bricktown? It’s got mini golf and a canal and stuff, I think, based on the picture.”

“Could be fun,” Adam said, politely noncommittal. “Might start at the library and see where we end up.”

Rachael’s brow furrowed for a second, and her brown eyes were sharp as she studied Adam’s face. She didn’t press, though. “Alright. Well, stay in touch. We can meet up for dinner if you’d like, but if you’re having fun that’s fine - I’ll text you both in the afternoon with our estimated departure time tomorrow so you can get some rest.”

“Thanks.” Lucky beamed at her, and then turned to Adam, nudging the other boy with his elbow. “Hey, uh, our ride’s outside.”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “Is it an Uber or a Lyft or -”

“Come on, move it, they just texted me that they’re waiting.” And that, Adam considered, was all the answer he needed. The two boys spilled out of the booth and exited the restaurant, stepping into the hot, dry Oklahoma spring air. The black SUV was sitting just outside, and though the windows were too dark to see through clearly, Adam could make out the pale smudge of a meticulously-kept old coat and a shock of white-blonde hair in the passenger seat. Without a thought, he booked it for the door.

“No storm chasing today, eh?” Crowley asked, as Lucky and Adam piled into the back seat. “Not a cloud in the sky, no studying to do … ?”

Lucky snorted as he buckled his seatbelt. “It’s a free day, Nanny. Blue sky bust.”

“I like the color blue,” Aziraphale said absently. In spite of everything on his mind, Adam couldn’t help but grin. “Rather lovely, I’ve always thought.”

“So what’s that mean? You get to do whatever?” Crowley was studying the two boys in the rearview mirror, one eyebrow arched. “And you needed a ride?”

Adam piped up at that. “Actually -” and he chuckled a little, privately, at how much that had sounded like Wensley, considering what he was about to say, “- I was thinking I might want to go to the library and read up on lightning a bit. Er. Because of -” he glanced at Lucky, who was watching him closely, curious. “Because if I’m going to  _ do something _ about all this,” he said, punctuating his sentence by waving a hand vaguely to the world outside of the car window, which was slowly creeping by as Crowley drifted through the parking lot, “I think I need like … more information, or something.”

“About lightning?” Aziraphale looked thoughtful. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. But Adam, I don’t think the lightning will really be the key -”

“I know,” Adam said firmly. “I know. But like, I want to feel prepared. And right now I … don’t.” He sighed. “I mean, the only thing I’ve used my powers for recently was to heat up Lucky’s ribs and make no one notice us in the restaurant. If I’m gonna be trying to manipulate nature …”

Lucky cut in. “So you’re staying?”

“Huh?” Adam blinked and as he did, he realized the car had stopped. Everyone - Lucky, Aziraphale, and Crowley - was watching him. “I .... yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna stay.”

“ _ Yes _ .” Lucky sighed, and slumped back into the seat. “Man, I wasn’t sure after the hail, but then when you said you might do something I hoped, you know?” He elbowed Adam. “You got this.”

Adam didn’t quite grimace, but it was a near thing. “Hope so. Er, but anyway,  _ if _ I’m gonna try to do something, I think I need more information about like, lightning. How it works and all that.”

Lucky shrugged. “Not that anyone really knows but yeah, good idea.”

Crowley, as far as Adam could tell, was trying very hard not to smirk. “Right. Library, then.” Although Aziraphale immediately white-knuckle gripped the ceiling handle when the demon pulled out of the parking lot, both Adam and Lucky sat calmly in the back, Adam having grown used to Crowley’s driving style over the years and Lucky having been acclimatized to it at a very early age. “I know how lightning works,” Crowley said absently, driving towards the downtown area. He didn’t know where the library was, exactly, but he expected there would be signs or something similar as they got closer*.

[*  _ And although there hadn’t been when the sun had risen over Oklahoma City that morning, suddenly a handful of helpful directing signs found themselves sunk sturdily into the concrete sidewalks to direct all who may be looking for the library. _ ] __

“Really?” Adam leaned forward. “How? You could just tell me.”

Aziraphale, for his part, was looking a bit smug. “Yes, dear, please  _ do _ enlighten us on the workings of lightning.” Crowley opened his mouth and Aziraphale added, “In plain, comprehensible English that anyone who was not present at the birth of Creation will understand.”

Crowley’s mouth clicked shut and his face twisted into a scowl. “Alright, well, when you put it like that there’s … er, alright, so there’s positive ions and er, negative ions, which are atoms which are -”

“I know what atoms are, Crowley,” Adam said from the back seat, swaying as the SUV skidded around a corner and politely ignoring the reactive little squeak that drew from Aziraphale, “it doesn’t have to be that basic.”

“This really is much easier in Enochian,” Crowley grumbled under his breath. “Two sentences, I could have it all explained.”

Aziraphale risked loosing his grip on the center console to pat Crowley weakly on the arm. “I’m sure you could, of course. But perhaps for Adam and Lucky the library might be a good place to start, and you can answer any questions they have, hm? Be-sides,” he said, speech halting a little when Crowley braked suddenly before he rammed into the back of another car, “I’d quite like to see the library myself.”

There was a change in the demon’s posture, a softening of his shoulders, and Adam saw Lucky shake his head, looking squarely down at his feet to hide his grin. Adam just smiled a little and, likewise, looked out the window where his expression would be hidden. “Yeah, you would. Alright, angel.”

-

For about two hours, Adam settled in at the big library and worked diligently, paging through any book on lightning he’d not read before. Lucky helped for a bit, but as the minutes passed and the books were shuffled to the side, he seemed to realize that what Adam was looking for was something he would likely not find, and he drifted off with Aziraphale, the two of them winding up in the fiction sections. Adam, meanwhile, gathered up another armful of books and wandered back to the nook he’d claimed with two comfy chairs, and Crowley already lounging in one of them. 

“So how can I do it?” Adam asked after about the eighth book. 

Crowley licked his thumb, the better to turn the page of the magazine he was leafing through. “Hm? Do what?”

Adam shifted a little in his chair and closed the book he’d been reading. “Control lightning. How do I do it?”

“Don’t think you can, Adam.” The demon sighed, and looked at Adam over the rims of his glasses. “Sorry, kid. I don’t - not now, anyway.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Adam hissed, frustrated, leaning forward toward Crowley, the book clenched in his hands. “They’re trying to get to me with lightning and hail and stuff, but if I can’t change the weather, then what can I do?” The magazine slapped shut, and Crowley slumped back, head lolling over the back of the chair, eyes closed. Adam glowered. “You’re  _ not helping _ .”

“I’m thinking, Adam, honestly.” 

They sat like that for a while, Adam watching the demon with sullen disappointment, Crowley slouched in the chair looking for all the world like he was asleep, and the sound of quiet readers all around them. Finally, Crowley sat up. “Right.”

“Right?” Adam spread his hands, expectant. “Right what?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then why -”

Crowley raised a hand. “ _ But _ ,” he went on, “that’s not a bad thing. Leaves us flexible to change the plan if we need to.”

“Which is great if there  _ is _ a plan, Crowley.” Adam scowled. “What am I supposed to do? I’m - all this is happening, and I don’t know what’s to do. I feel like I can’t do  _ anything _ .”

“No no nonono, you can. It’s just … we’re gonna have to think on our feet a bit, alright? Until we figure out what’s going on. Michael and Hastur, we know that well enough - using the weather to go after you but without letting on where they’re at. But there’s more to this.” He frowned. “The ghost, the angel in the parking lot last night, all that. There’s something else happening.”

“Like what?” Adam let his chin settle in his hands as he remembered those bits - with Hastur and Michael, it was almost easy to forget. He didn’t whimper, but it was a near thing. “Armageddon again? Is that why that angel is still, you know, around? Waiting for things to … start?”

“The more I think about it, the more I don’t think so.” Crowley drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Back in the day there were angels called Watchers. And this almost feels like that, really - just sort of hanging around and keeping an eye on things, helping out when needed. Wonder if any of them are still around? Aziraphale might know ...”

Adam cocked his head. “Like guardian angels? You said something about guardians last night.”

“Sort of,” Crowley said, in a tone that indicated it was not at all like that. He elaborated, “Sort of, but not as … well, alright not really: guardians have specific people they’re assigned to, and their entire purpose is to ensure nothing off-the-plan befalls those people.” He waved the magazine at Adam. “Far as I know, every human, right, has a file card somewhere. Doesn’t have much on it. Just date of birth, date of death. The guardians are assigned on the date of birth, and their purpose is to monitor to make sure the date of death doesn’t come too early.”

“What about too late?” Adam asked, eyes wide a voice low. A card, somewhere … he wondered if he had one. He had chosen humanity, but considering his parentage, he wasn’t really human - not  _ really _ . Crowley, in response, shrugged and spread his hands. Adam sighed. “Okay. That’s … wild. Could it be  _ my  _ guardian?”

Crowley considered the answer carefully for a beat, teeth clenching and unclenching as the thought. Very slowly, he said, “If you had a guardian, Adam, I rather would have expected the whole cock-up when you were younger to be noticed a bit earlier.”

Well, that answered that. Adam nodded. He felt a bit betrayed, but then again, considering he’d not even really known the specifics of guardian angels until last night, it didn’t feel like a tremendous loss. He looked down to his shoes. “Okay, so then what about the Watchers?”

Still watching him, Crowley nodded. “Yeah. Ah, Watchers were more for a general … humanity overall … thing.” He waved his hands as he spoke, trying to formulate a gesture that was both protective and all-encompassing. “Bit above what Aziraphale does in England with the Principality gig.”

Adam, who had heard at one time or another the explanation of what a Principality is generally responsible for, nodded in understanding. “Right. But not anymore, it sounds like?”

“Not officially.” Crowley looked down suddenly, preoccupied with his fingernails, picking loose flakes of black paint. “Not for, oh, about five thousand years. The Watchers er … got a bit too friendly with the humans. God didn’t like that.”

“Like friendlier than you and Aziraphale are with humans?”

“Yes. Definitely so.” Adam was watching him, and Crowley gestured uncomfortably, shifting around in his seat. “Er. Well, some of them married some humans and, um, naturally one thing followed another and …”

“Can that happen?” Adam remembered himself then, and looked down at his chest before looking back up to Crowley. “I guess it can, huh.”

“Yup.”

“So no more Watchers.”

Crowley shook his head. “No more Watchers. Or there weren’t, last I knew. But …” He shrugged. “But this feels like it did, back then. Just always this sort of general angelic presence. Nothing traceable most of the time, nothing specific, but always sort of  _ there _ .”

“Why?” He watched Crowley shrug and then sighed, allowing himself to fall back, almost bonelessly, into his chair. “Right. Dunno. Nobody knows.” He threw up his hands and groaned. “So we wait and watch for ourselves?”

“I know it’s not your first choice but …” He hissed in frustration - a very inhuman hiss, which startled a passing patron into looking at their shoes for a snake - and waved a hand. “We can ask Aziraphale if he has any better ideas, but he didn’t last I talked to him. If anything comes out, of course, we can change track.”

Adam looked fixedly at the ceiling, a few floors up, all white tiles aligned in a neat, orderly grid. “So we still don’t have a plan, not really, aside from ‘do something’.” He scrubbed at his face with his hands and when he let them fall back to his lap, he kept his eyes closed. “You realize how scary this is for me, right? Why I want to just … just leave, and protect everyone?”

“I do.” He heard the creak of the other chair as Crowley got up, and a second later felt the demon’s hand on his shoulder. “But we’re here too. I don’t like it any better than you do, but it’s what’s happening, so we need to deal with it. And you can, Adam.”

The boy did his best to force a little smile. “Here I am, what am I gonna do about it?” he recited.

“Precisely.” Crowley shook his shoulder then, and prodded him for good measure. “What do you say we find the other two and get out of here? I think that’s enough reading for one day, anyway. I’m getting a headache.”

“To do what?” Adam asked, opening his eyes and looking up at the demon. Crowley was grinning, and in spite of the anxiety sitting like a writhing lead ball in his belly, Adam found himself smirking a little too.

“Saw something on the way in - I think we’ll all like it.”

-

Adam sighed as he jumped out of the car a few miles away, sneakers landing heavily on the hot pavement. “You  _ would _ want to come here,” he said, swinging the door shut behind him. They were parked, naturally, in an unlikely and previously-nonexistent space directly in front of the Oklahoma City botanical gardens. 

Crowley beamed as he jumped out as well. “Yes, I would. I did the library, it’s only fair.”

“It doesn’t have to be a trade-off,” Aziraphale pointed out. As the group made their way toward the entrance, the angel comfortably fell into step beside his partner, Lucky and Adam trailing a few feet back. “You know I love gardens anyway.”

At the entrance, Lucky paused, clearly ready to stop and pay, but Adam shook his head. “Nah,” was all he said, before he stepped forward and through the gates, the attendant not even bothering to give them a second glance. Lucky paused, but after Adam nodded encouragingly, he stepped through as well, obviously bemused by the free entrance*.

[*  _ Well, not exactly free. Thanks to Aziraphale’s intervention, the till did miraculously come to have just the exact amount of cash needed for admission for two students, and two seniors _ **.]

[**  _ It never does to let pride stand in the way of a good discount. Besides, Aziraphale reasoned, whether or not they looked it, both he and Crowley were most  _ definitely _ older than 65. _ ]

A moment later, Adam was the one to stop. “Woah.”

The gardens were surprisingly vast considering their positioning in the middle of a city, and paths meandered through all sorts of beds and displays bursting with colorful flowers. In the center of the garden, stretching across a long reflective pool, was a perfectly cylindrical greenhouse, the outlines of tropical plants clearly visible through the shining glass.

As Adam blinked around, trying to take in everything at once, Lucky said, in the understatement of the century, “Nice plants.” A bank of wildflowers waved in a soft breeze. 

“They’re alright,” Crowley muttered, scowling at the flowers. “Could do with a bit more height for their species, I think.” He leaned in. “Lucky I’m just visiting or we’d be having proper wordsss, and no missstake.”

Bemused, Lucky looked from Crowley to Aziraphale as the demon straightened back up and looked around, hands in his pockets. “I ... thought that would be more your wheelhouse, Brother Francis.”

Adam laughed, unable to help himself, and Aziraphale smiled almost bashfully. “Ah, well, you see … Er, I’ve never actually  _ been _ much of a gardener. That was always more Crowley’s area of expertise.” When Lucky looked perplexed, gaping as if he had a question he couldn’t quite manage to ask, Aziraphale went on, “The trouble was, when we were formulating our plan to raise you, I was  _ also _ never very good with small children. And your family wasn’t hiring a librarian, so given the available options, gardener it was.” He shot a fond look toward Crowley, who pretended not to notice, although the tips of his ears did get a bit redder. “Besides, I always had access to any botanical knowledge I might have needed.”

“And I pulled a bit of double-duty,” Crowley griped, though there wasn’t much venom to it. He waved an arm toward the hedges lining the path. “Those old English yews on the property had you dead to rights within a week, angel. Just growing all over the gaffe, and they were all half-withered, lazy things. So I’d put you down for your nap,” he added, glancing back over his shoulder toward Lucky, who was smiling broadly, “and take lunch in the gardens.”

“And yell at the hedges,” Aziraphale added.

Lucky started to laugh. Crowley just nodded. “And yell at the hedges. Bloody weeds needed it.”

“I wish I remembered that,” Lucky said, still grinning.

“You must - I’m sure he didn’t stop when you outgrew naps,” Aziraphale chuckled, elbowing Crowley gently. Crowley hissed a little, but there was a hint of a smile there even so. “In fact I distinctly remember telling you  _ not _ to yell at the plants in front of young Master W - Lucky. On more than one occasion.”

Adam snorted. “Wait, what did you call him?” He looked to Lucky, who suddenly looked very embarrassed. “What did they call you?” Lucky mumbled something, very quietly, and Adam cocked his head, his wide grin bright and mischievous. “Sorry mate, didn’t catch that.”

“Young Master Warlock,” Lucky half-groaned, looking away and alleviating his shame a little by snarling at a shrub. 

“To be fair,” Aziraphale said, over Adam’s laughter, “we were  _ working _ for the family. Some respect was due, after all.”

Crowley added. “And we believed you were the Antichrist, also. That bit was important.” They drew up to the edge of a pond and stopped, all four admiring the water lilies. Even Crowley looked appreciative. “Surprisingly good, for a desert.”

“Well,” Lucky said quietly from his spot at Crowley’s side, hands in his pockets, cheeks still flushed a bit red, “you didn’t really call me that much, Nanny. I mostly remember -”

“Little Hellion? Hellspawn? Wee Beast?” Crowley suggested, and Lucky turned an even darker shade of crimson. 

Lucky muttered, “I was just gonna say Hellspawn.”

“Should have quit while you were ahead,” Adam snickered.

Crowley ruffled Lucky’s hair a little, and ignored the boy’s half-hearted attempt at pushing the demon away and rearranging his hair into its intended disheveled state. “Always, Hellspawn.”

Positioned at Aziraphale’s right side, Adam had the perfect opportunity to watch the way the other three looked at one another then - like relatives reunited after a long absence, comfortable and happy and, somehow, a little sad all at once. Something like jealousy twinged in his own belly, but he shoved it down, pushed it aside: Lucky might have had Aziraphale and Crowley raising him (which, had Adam known the details of all the various mishaps - and he would, eventually - he would likely have found that much less appealing), but Adam had had what was supposed to be Lucky’s life: a blissfully, remarkably normal life until his eleventh birthday. Lucky had lost that through no fault of his own, and when he thought about that, Adam found the jealousy sort of evaporated on its own accord.

“So the tropical gardens, I’d imagine, are in that large glass cylinder?” Aziraphale mused, jolting Adam out of his reverie. “We should - oh, a theater!” Adam looked to follow the angel’s line of sight, and saw what certainly did appear to be an outdoor theater, built into a hillside. “I wonder if there’s a play on.”

“Uh, hang on.” Quickly, Lucky strode off, and he returned a moment later with a little pamphlet from an information stand. “Okay, so uh the date is … oh, okay. So there is a show this afternoon. ‘The Tempest’. Shakespeare, right?”

“Shakespeare!” Aziraphale exclaimed with obvious delight.

Crowley smirked. “One of the funny ones, even. An apropos show, as well.  _ Tempest _ . You’d think they’d shy away from plays like that around here.”

Slowly, Lucky looked up from the pamphlet. Adam realized what his fellow student was about to ask, and started grinning before the question was even out. “Wait … you guys are … did you  _ know _ \- ?”

“We did.” Aziraphale’s smile was a little smug as he said so. “Me better than Crowley -”

“- Because he was always writing these awful gloomy plays, even if I  _ told _ him people like funny ones better.”

Lucky looked from Aziraphale and Crowley to Adam. “They’ve told you all this?” he asked, half-whispering. “You know all these stories?”

Adam shrugged. “A lot of them. I don’t think anyone except those two know all of them.”

“So …” Lucky looked to Aziraphale, and then Crowley, both of whom were grinning in what amounted to full anticipatory glee. “So you’re gonna tell me some of these, right?”

Aziraphale gestured for Lucky to step forward, and then put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, guiding him as the quartet started down the path and toward the central feature that was the crystal bridge - the greenhouse. “Would you like to start with Shakespeare?”

“Don’t forget the time you made Hamlet successful,” Adam said, landing an elbow in Crowley’s ribs. “Why was that again?”

“Have you ever ridden a horse in a seventeenth century saddle?” Crowley asked with a half-hearted glare Adam’s direction. “Hm?”

“No,” Adam admitted, still smiling.

“Then can it.” Aziraphale had launched into the story of how he met the one-and-only Billy Shakes, and in spite of his apparent annoyance, Crowley smirked. “He’ll get there eventually.”

-

Adam found, as they meandered through both the botanical gardens and Aziraphale and Crowley’s shared memories, that the reactions from Lucky were usually nearly and sometimes even  _ more  _ entertaining than the stories themselves. The gardens were beautiful too, and made a perfect backdrop to Aziraphale’s wandering storytelling, the four of them often pausing at featured areas, Lucky and Adam rapt on Aziraphale, while Crowley usually stalked off to cast a disparaging eye over the plants. For the most part, Adam had heard the stories before, but there were a few new ones which had him so fascinated that once or twice he forgot to watch where he was walking and nearly tripped into the displays. Usually, he was only stopped at the last minute by Crowley’s hand on the neck of his shirt, pulling him up and steadying him back on his feet.

The story of how the two had met was worthy of a full stop, and lunch provided a convenient excuse to do so. There was a picnic table near the lunch spot, half-isolated by shrubbery and trees, and they stayed there for a full two hours, listening as the two celestials engaged in a masterful back-and-forth on the history of early humankind. Naturally, the question of dinosaurs and evolution came up - it always did, eventually - but as Adam expected they dodged admirably and distracted Lucky (and even, to an extent, Adam) with some anecdote about some old village or another finding a dinosaur skeleton and erecting it with the thought that perhaps it would come to life and protect the village*.

[*  _ “Sometimes,” said Crowley, snickering, “I’d make it move while someone was looking at it. Just a little. And they’d try to tell everyone and people would think the heat was getting to them or whatever. Good fun.” _ ]

“So you two really have known each other like … forever.” Lucky said, watching as a rivulet of chocolate ice cream ran down the outside of the cone he was holding. “All of human history.” He looked up. “And you  _ still _ weren’t dating when I was a kid.”

“Ah, er.” Adam might have laughed at the look Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged then, panicked and bashful all at once. As it was, he bit his tongue and stared at his shoes while Aziraphale stammered, “Uh. Well, it wasn’t so simple then, we were ostensibly on opposite sides -”

Lucky looked doubtful. “No you weren’t. You were trying to stop the Apocalypse together. How is that on opposite sides?”

Adam bit the top of his ice cream cone off just to keep from laughing, while Aziraphale tried again to explain. “Well, through different channels -” 

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Crowley murmured, leaving Aziraphale to mumble his way to a halt. Crowley was smirking. “Oy, have you looked at the time? If we want to menace the gardens around the dog park before the play starts we need to get a move on.”

“Oh yeah.” Lucky slurped up the melting ice cream - Aziraphale tutted in disapproval, to no avail - and unfolded himself from the picnic bench before striding off purposefully toward the dog park. “Leave no plant un-menaced.” 

“That’s what I always say,” Crowley agreed, slithering out of his own seat and sauntering along, long legs catching him up to Lucky in a few steps. Rather more slowly, Adam and Aziraphale followed.

Adam licked his ice cream cone, thoughtful, and said, after a while, “Crowley really raised him, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes. Very much so, until age eight. And they’ve kept in touch, of course.” In his peripheral field, he could see Aziraphale smiling at the two ahead, and couldn’t help but smile too.

“I mean, I’ve only known him, what, a week? But he seems cool. He’s real nice.”

Aziraphale’s smile broadened, and Adam’s did to match. Quietly, he worked at his ice cream cone, free hand in his pocket, and walked along next to the angel until they reached the as-of-yet unharassed plants. While Crowley hissed curses at the plants for being ‘too bloody weedy by half’, Adam and Lucky hung back to finish their ice cream, shoulder-to-shoulder in companionable silence under the blue sky and thick white clouds. Aziraphale disappeared for a bit, returning almost immediately after they noticed he was gone, with a cake-pop in hand, although Adam couldn’t remember seeing anywhere in the gardens that had been selling cake-pops.

When it came time for the play that afternoon, there were four improbably excellent seats available fairly close to the stage. The stage itself was beautifully-decorated, and ringed with water and gardens. Once the play -  _ The Tempest _ , and wasn’t that an ironic name, thought Adam - started, they settled in for the show. Aziraphale and Crowley did murmur back and forth a time or two, and if Adam wasn’t mistaken it was about  _ the first performance of the play ever in history _ , and how this stacked up, which was still surreal even after seven years of knowing the pair. Still, it was a testament to the actors, and the story itself, that even with the two immortals bickering over set dressing, Adam found himself enjoying the show and the story anyway.

About midway through, Adam realized both that he had been sort of hanging on the contents of the play, all the dialogue and themes, and also, that Lucky was staring at him.With only a little consideration about how it would go over first, Adam kicked the other boy in the ankle. “Pay attention. I think Aziraphale’s probably gonna quiz us at the end.”

Lucky blanched, and the curious expression he’d had dissipated. “Shit. Really? I don’t understand half of what they’re saying.”

“ _ Shh _ .”

The play continued, and Adam fell even deeper into his study of it, surprised at how interesting he found the whole thing. He’d never been much of one for Shakespeare - he had vivid memories of reading  _ Hamlet _ in school and complaining extensively about it to anyone who would listen - but he thought, maybe, he’d keep a copy of this one on his shelf, providing he lived to ever see his shelf again. Something about the story, about humans bumbling around in the midst of meddling supernatural spirits and entities and still coming out alright by just the kindness of one person and the sheer chance of supernatural forgiveness, resonated within him.

When the play ended with Prospero’s plea to the audience, the applause shocked Adam enough into looking away, and around. Humans, all around. People from all walks of life, every color and shape and size, alive and well and happy for it. 

Might not have been, he thought, not for the first time in his life. This time, though, the meaning of it really  _ settled _ . If he hadn’t taken the side of humanity, hadn’t fallen in love with Earth and all the good things it had to offer, this would all be gone. No more Shakespeare plays, no more lazy nights in Tadfield with the Them, no more mad summer trips to America to chase storms. 

It might yet be gone, he realized, if he kept running. Kept avoiding things. The supernatural forces of Hastur and Michael were trying to get him out of the way and start it all again, like Prospero had when he sought revenge on Alonso. 

Admittedly, the metaphor fell apart a little at that point, Adam realized, because that would infer Hastur and Michael would have to forgive him just for being a good person, and though he didn’t really know them well, based on what he’d seen so far he thought that was rather unlikely. Of course, God might be the one to forgive him as well, he thought quietly, just in case She was listening, but then again She’d have to be  _ around _ for that, wouldn’t she … ?

“Hey. You okay?” Adam started a little and looked to Lucky, sitting on his left. The other boy was clapping, but sort of idly, but he was studying Adam intently. “Tired? I get it, it’s been a weird few days, I wouldn’t say no to going to bed early myself -”

Adam started clapping. “I’m fine,” he said, and he surprised himself with how much he meant it. “Seriously. I’m serious. I’m fine.”

Lucky’s face twisted into a frown. “See when you say it like that, it makes it harder to believe you.”

“I am  _ fine _ .” He cocked his head toward the stage, the actors taking a final bow. “I dunno, it gave me time to think, I guess, and some of the stuff in the play … anyway, I’m fine. I think … I think I’m starting to get an idea of what I’m gonna do.”

Lucky looked wary. “You’re not talking about going to bed early, are you?”

“I am not.”

“Didn’t think so.” Lucky raised an eyebrow. “You … wanna talk about it yet?”

“Nope. Gotta think about it a bit more.”

“Okay.” He looked to his left, where Aziraphale and Crowley were still good-naturedly bickering about the quality of the performance. They didn’t seem to be paying attention, not really, although Adam thought that he could see Crowley watching him, even with dusk falling and the demon’s sunglasses. Looking back to Adam, Lucky jerked a thumb toward them. “You wanna talk to them about it first?”

Adam considered the prospect. “Don’t think so,” he concluded. 

“Hm. That kind of plan?”

“Dunno yet.”

Lucky bit his lip. His eyes flicked from Adam, to the stage, and then back to Adam. “Are you gonna … need help, at some point?”

Adam nodded. “Probably.”

Lucky breathed out through pursed lips, an exaggerated sigh as he let his shoulders sag and his head hang, elbows balanced on his knees. “Alright. You got it.” He looked up at Adam with a wicked little smile. “Sounds cool to me.”

There was a beat then, and something passed between them - something unspoken, and Adam would be hard-pressed to put words to exactly how that pause made him feel, or why it gave him such a sense of  _ security _ \- and then they both started to laugh. A normal laugh at first, but it quickly evolved into the kind where they were both sat back in their seats, shoulders shaking and bellies starting to ache with it, tears gathering in their eyes. They laughed so hard it actually distracted Aziraphale from his dissertation on the value of iambic pentameter in modern performance, and the way his and Crowley’s expressions gradually shifted from bemused to suspicious made them laugh even harder. 

“I’m assuming,” Aziraphale hazarded, while Adam and Lucky tried to compose themselves, even as the other audience members were beginning to trail out, “you enjoyed it?”

Adam recovered first. “Yeah,” he managed, swiping the water from his eyes. “Yeah, I did. Lucky, d’you like it?”

“Huh?” Lucky wiped his nose, and looked, bewildered, from Adam to Aziraphale. “Uh. Yeah. Kind of hard to understand, sometimes -” Aziraphale scowled, and Crowley smirked triumphantly in the background, once again prompting a wave of laughter from the boys. 

“Told you so. Modern interpretations are all well and good as long as the  _ youths _ can understand them,” said Crowley, rising with a stretch, and prompting the other three to follow suit, Adam and Lucky still giggling. “The themes are still applicable, eh?”

Aziraphale straightened his waistcoat as he stood, and then brushed down the fronts of his trousers, though they were pristine and unwrinkled. “I still hold that much of the value of the writing itself lies in the meter.”

“Yes, angel, but ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, hm?”

At that, the angel set his jaw, and Adam saw the shape of his shoulders square up. Ah, he thought, and muttered to Lucky, “Watch this.”

“Old serpent,” Aziraphale muttered, before snapping, “‘Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue’.”

“Are they having like a … Shakespeare rap battle?” Lucky asked, a little awed. “Is this why Nanny read  _ The Twelfth Night _ to me as a bedtime story?”

Adam nodded. “Yep.”

Crowley smirked, “But angel, ‘suit the action to the word, the word to the action.’”

“And Crowley,” Aziraphale said, taking Crowley’s offered arm and ignoring the way the demon gently shoved Lucky and Adam toward the exit, “Within the original words are the author’s thoughts, and ‘my words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go.’”

“Neither did old Will,” Crowley said casually, and Adam started laughing again at the horrified look that crossed Lucky’s face. “Good guy, but he said it himself: ‘Men of few words are the best men.’”

Aziraphale huffed. “ _ No, _ he didn’t say that, Polonious - a  _ character _ \- did, and you know a character’s words are not always representative of the author’s -”

“The speech that followed that bit was quite long, too,” Crowley went on, more loudly, over Aziraphale’s protests. “Which just sort of hammered home that Polonious was out-of-touch -”

In spite of the ongoing argument behind them, Adam yawned, and Lucky quickly stifled the same. “How long will they do this, do you think?” Lucky asked.

“All night,” Adam replied with a resigned sort of experience. “Longer if there’s wine. But if we just keep heading toward the car, I think they’ll take us back to the hotel. We should probably go to bed,” he added, after a glance at his phone. “Early morning tomorrow.”

“Truck’s fixed?” Lucky craned his head around to peer at Adam’s phone. “Where to?”

“Kansas, apparently. She says there’s a really good system likely to happen somewhere around there.”

Lucky nodded. “We’ll have to pull the radar up on my tablet when we get back to the room and see. Are you gonna wanna … look at anything else or anything?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the trailing duo, who were still aggressively quoting the Bard at one another. “Or have them look at anything?”

“Nope.” Adam stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I think we have to work with what we’ve got for now. Just keep moving.”

The taller boy looked at him with a measuring sort of expression, like he was thinking hard about something. After a while, when they were nearly at the entrance to the gardens, he said, quietly, “‘Here we are, let’s figure out what we’re gonna do with it’?” 

Adam nodded. “Yup. Here I am, what am I gonna do about it.”


	18. Negative Base, Positive Leader

With all of the plots afoot, and Crowley’s typical adrenaline-pumping driving back to the hotel that night (still reciting Shakespeare, which was sort of impressive, actually), Adam had assumed sleep would evade him. He laid down, fully prepared for his mind to start racing, but to his lethargic surprise, his eyelids began to feel heavy as soon as his head hit the pillow. The last thing he remembered before dropping off to sleep was wondering with a vague sort of interest whether or not the cold front coming over the Rocky Mountains would stay aloft long enough to produce anything of interest.

The next morning even felt normal, almost - there was no discussion of the supernatural, and aside from aiming a furtive little wave at the 4Runner as he and Lucky crossed the parking lot, no discussion of or contact with the supernatural. After the events of the last few days, Adam thought it was nice, really, just to drive, watching the scrub and farmland roll by and listen to the conversation in the truck. Certainly, the main focus was the weather, but as they drove along the topics wandered all over. For instance, he learned that Rachael was an avid baseball fan, and held season tickets to the Tampa Bay Rays. He learned Noel had a little cabin in Alaska, where he would go during the offseason to hunt and fish. He learned Lucky had once scratched a rude phrase into an antique bedframe in the White House, and they all had a good laugh about his still-present anxiety that it would be discovered and the secret service would come to arrest him*. 

[*  _ In point of fact, it had been discovered by an aide’s young daughter at one point, but she was too amused by ‘Jacksons Bone Zone’ to tell anyone but her friends about her discovery _ .]

Adam talked too, about Tadfield and the Them, the kinds of trouble they used to get into, and the endless misery they inflicted upon RP Tyler. When they all conversed about their families - trips and vacations, fond memories and traditions - he talked about his immediate family but also about his second family: Anathema and her American traditions, and his godfathers and their … historical traditions.

“I bet you did really well in history class,” Rachael posited at one point, when Adam was talking about how he found an antique hat at his godfathers’ place that had a legitimate taxidermied bird affixed to it.

Adam glanced in the side mirror, saw the hulking black mass of the 4Runner following them, and smiled. “Not really. Their knowledge is pretty … specialized to their particular interests. Maybe uh, eclectic? I think that’s the word.”

“Well,” said Lucky, with a mischievous grin as he glanced over at Adam, “you think that’s weird, you wouldn’t  _ believe  _ the kind of stuff I found in some cleaning closet at Wright-Patterson base.”

“S’that the one in Ohio?” Noel asked, glancing back in the rearview mirror, his good eye wide. In a lower voice, he asked, “They got aliens there?”

Lucky shook his head but continued, in an equally low and conspiratorial tone, “I dunno. I did find all kinds of weird metal or something - it moved like rubber if you bent it, but if you hit it it was hard like steel. And it was really shiny, even though it was stuffed into the back of a cleaning closet and there was hardly any light.”

“Wait.” Adam was staring, wide-eyed, mouth half-open. “You’re serious?”

There was a heavy silence in the truck and then, after a second, Lucky started laughing. “No way. Just pulling your leg. There was a box of old photos though, I think with Bill Clinton and some women in them, but someone started coming down the hall so I had to put it back before I could get a good look.”

Adam sagged. “Oh.”

Noel sighed. “Pretty good one there, Lucky. I thought you were gonna confirm aliens for a minute. Everyone knows about Clinton.”

“Nah, sorry. The cultural attache doesn’t get that kind of intel.” Lucky waved a hand. “It was definitely why I was looking in the closets in the first place, though.”

Well of course, they all agreed. If given the opportunity to discover secret alien intelligence, who wouldn’t take it? And then the conversation moved on again, this time to the recent cruise Rachael had taken where she could have sworn she saw a UFO rise straight up, out of the sea, and shoot off into space. “Might have been ball lightning,” she allowed, “which also would have been really cool, but I didn’t have my instruments on me.”

“I’m surprised you don’t take them on cruises,” Noel quipped. 

Adam opened his mouth to ask a question about ball lightning, a phenomenon he’d heard of but never truly understood, when his phone buzzed. He looked down.

‘ _ i was serious. had roswell stamped on it too _ ’

Adam most definitely did  _ not _ look at Lucky, although every ounce of him twitched to. He wanted to ask every question he could think of, wanted to pursue that entire line of inquiry as far as he could think to go, but instead he just replied with, ‘ _ so angels and demons weren’t enough, we have aliens we have to think about too? _ ’

In the front seat, Noel and Rachael  _ were _ arguing about ball lightning, and although Adam tried to half-listen as best he could, he couldn’t look away from his phone. ‘ _ dont think right now. probably not. angels and demons are probably more of an immediate concern _ ’

Adam nodded. ‘ _ We should delete these messages too, I’m assuming. _ ’

‘ _ o absolutely _ ’

They did so promptly, and returned just in time to hear Noel assert, “Listen, I’m telling you, dead bodies or no, I’ve seen a Sasquatch, and I never seen ball lightning.”

Rachael spluttered in indignation for a second before she managed to burst out with, “There are  _ videos _ of ball lightning, Noel!”

“And there are videos of Sasquatch,  _ Rachael _ !” 

“Fakes!”

Lucky chimed in with, “I mean, the ball lightning videos could be faked.” He threw his hands up when Rachael spun around to glare at him. “Not saying they are, just saying they  _ could _ be.”

“Well, yeah,” she said then after a beat, only slightly mollified. “And I’m sure some are. Well, I know some are. But some are legitimate! There was that one from Venezuela that no one has been able to debunk yet.”

“Oh, right,” Adam chimed in with enthusiasm as he recalled the video in question. “I watched that like, must be a hundred times. I don’t think it’s fake, but then again I’m not sure how you’d tell. ‘M not a video editor or anything.”

“I’ve always thought the fluctuation of the intensity of the ball was the key,” Rachael posited. 

Noel snorted. “Yeah, because you can’t do that on an animating program.”

“Could you?” Rachael challenged.

“Well  _ I  _ couldn’t, but an editor could, like Adam said.”

Lucky snickered and asked, “Okay but seriously, if ball lightning  _ is _ real - not saying it isn’t!” he added quickly when Rachael turned around, eyes narrow, “- but if it is real, how does it work? Like, what’s the suspected mechanism for it?”

Rachael’s eyes glittered. “I am  _ so _ glad you asked,” she said, before launching into a detailed explanation of the physics of plasma, and her theories behind the mechanisms.

It was, in all, a nice distraction. Adam did occasionally glance into the side mirror to make sure the 4Runner was nearby - it was, it always was - a day’s driving up to Kansas filled with chatter and forecasting was a soothing breath he had known he’d needed but wasn’t sure he would get. 

Around one in the afternoon they pulled off the highway for gas, lunch, and a huddle around the laptop. There were three cells forming, two to the west and one moving more eastward, and the distances between them necessitated picking one. Rachael and Noel gave the students first crack at it and quietly listened to their reasoning as they ate, the four of them seated on the curb outside of the gas station. 

“So,” Noel said, once he’d polished off his turkey sandwich and Adam and Lucky’s muttering amongst themselves had given way to quiet consumption of chicken tenders, “what’d you decide?”

Rachael had finished her lunch as well, and had her arms wrapped around her knees. “Did you reach an agreement?” she asked, somewhat more astutely, having eaves-dropped just a little more. 

“Well,” said Adam, and then he stopped, partially because he’d just taken a bite of grilled cheese but mostly because he wasn’t sure he knew the answer. “Well I know what  _ I _ think looks better, anyway.”

Lucky sighed, half smirking, his sandwich wrapped crumpled up in his hand. “And I still disagree. Sorry.”

“Alright.” Rachael scooted down the curb until she was sat right next to Lucky, and Noel likewise moved in next to Adam, the four of them peering at the laptop. “What’s the point of contention?”

“I think this one,” Lucky said, indicating the more northward of the two western systems, “and he’s saying that one,” he said, moving to point to the southern one. 

“Mhm. So, one at a time please, explain your reasoning.”

They did. Adam went first, and made a hard argument for the southern storm. His feelings were two-fold: looking at the atmospheric conditions, of course, was a hint, and the dew point was slightly higher in the southern air mass moving in from the Gulf, but there was a part of him that just … felt like it was right. It looked fine on radar, not especially tornadic but not disorganized either, and the more he looked at it the more he felt good about its potential to organize later on. He couched it differently of course, because he wasn’t sure “I have a good feeling about it” would go over well, but his strong preference for that one really was nothing more. 

Lucky, though, made a good case too. Yes, he argued calmly, the humidity was lower up north, but the vertical wind shear was higher there, too. He pointed out the data from the morning models that seemed to favor a higher CAPE to the north, with the CIN remaining higher to the south. “And,” he concluded, after laying out his data, “look at that.” He pointed to the screen, and Adam frowned, clearly doubtful. “I dunno, it kinda looks like a hook echo to me.”

Noel squinted at the screen. “Well, I dunno about hook echo. I think it’s just a trailing piece of the system. For now.”

Lucky and Adam straightened up in their places on the curb, looking expectantly between the two storm chasers. “So? Who’s right?” Adam asked, after Rachael and Noel had had a bit more time to consider the maps themselves.

Rachael was moving her cursor around on the screen, intent. “You both make a good case - I think both storms have tornadic potential.” She squinted. “And you were right to ignore the storm to the east, as well - either of you care to say why you ruled that one out?”

“It’s gonna be too cold,” Adam answered right away. Lucky nodded in agreement.

“What he said.”

“I agree.” Rachael breathed out through her nose once, a long breath. “You both make a good case. And you know, I think either could generate a storm.” The boys exchanged a look. “Sorry I’m not the ultimate tie-breaker,” she added, with a grin, “but that’s the storm chaser’s dilemma, isn’t it? You work with the data you have, but at the end of the day, whatever happens, happens. Hm.” She let go of her knees, the better to cross her ankles and drum the fingers of her free hand on the crumbling concrete. “You’re right, Adam, about the humidity, but then Lucky makes a good point about the vertical wind shear and the other numbers.” She closed her eyes and threw her head back. “Noel, you’re the tiebreaker.”

Ponderously, Noel looked at his wristwatch. “What time do you think they’re gonna pop off?”

“Probably around five or six.”

“So we got four, maybe five hours. Better to be there sooner though, so we can track it from underneath, hm?” He looked at the laptop. “Alright, let me look at some numbers.” He took the laptop from Rachael’s hands, and clicked around a little, scowling at the screen, his injured eye still obscured by the bandage and the swelling. “Hm.” And then he shrugged. “Why not both?”

Rachael snorted. “Because they’re two hours apart and likely going to go off at the same time?”

“Well not all today, obviously.” Adam peered over his shoulder as the man zoomed out. “But if you look to the west, I think  _ tomorrow  _ the real show’s going to be up north, probably more in Nebraska, honestly, but it could dip south a little bit.”

“You think?” Rachael jumped to her feet and wandered over behind Noel, the better to examine the radar. “Yeah, you know that’s a good point. You see what he’s talking about, guys?”

Adam nodded, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Lucky do the same. “Yeah. Yeah there’s a system that will come in, and another system moving up through uh … that state tonight.”

“Mississippi,” Lucky said. “Okay, yeah. I think I see it.”

“So what I suggest,” Noel went on in an even, reasonable tone, “is we take the southern one tonight - it might be higher precipitation but that doesn’t mean there won’t be tornadoes - and then tomorrow unless things change drastically we can go up north and grab that system. It’ll give us more time to get into position tomorrow too - we can see if it’s going to swing more west or east, or whatever it wants to do.”

Rachael propped her hands on her hips. “All sounds really reasonable to me. What do you two think?”

Lucky caught Adam’s raised eyebrow, shrugged in response, and then turned his face up to Rachael, squinting into the sun. “I dunno. You guys are in charge. It sounds fine to me.”

“Yeah, I’m alright with it,” Adam added.

Rachael crossed her arms and looked out across the parking lot. “I’d prefer we all be in agreement.”

Again, the two boys exchanged a look and shrugged. “Okay,” said Adam. “We’re in agreement. South today, north tomorrow.”

“Very good,” said Noel. He snapped the laptop shut then, and passed it up over his shoulder to Rachael, before rising from the curb. “Let’s load up.”

-

The area they had ended up targeting was only about an hour away, and an easy highway drive. Adam watched the clouds as they grew closer, noting the increasing height, and how thick they were getting. “Looks promising,” he said to Lucky, while the two of them slouched in their seats.

“Yeah, for sure.” Lucky put his hand out for a fist-bump, which Adam returned. “Good call, dude.”

“Don’t get too excited yet,” said Rachael. Her laptop was away at the moment, and she was leaning back in the seat with her baseball hat pulled down to cover her eyes. “It’s early. We’re gonna have some time to wait.”

“Might be early days,” Noel said, pointing ahead of them, out of the windshield. “But I think that’s the crew from Arkansas Storm Center up ahead. Good sign.”

Rachael laughed. “They have a camera crew with them this time?”

Noel shrugged, not that Rachael had her eyes open to see it. “Can’t tell. They have their little caravan though - looks like all three cars. Plus that tank.”

Adam looked forward too, squinting at the nearest vehicle Noel was indicating. It was recognizable from the hours of storm-chasing television he’d watched during late summer nights with the Them: hazard-orange, armored and reinforced. On the show they’d called it ‘Beast’, and the plan was almost always to get it as close as possible to a tornado, if not directly inside one, to measure wind speed, barometric pressure, all that information. They’d managed a few times on the show, and when the instruments had worked they’d gotten some good information from both the leading edge and the trailing edge of tornadoes, which ostensibly had helped with meteorological research*.

[*  _ Although Adam suspected that really, it just made for good TV. An unmanned probe, after all, could gather all of the same information, and with robotics it could almost certainly be mobile. Still, it  _ did _ make for good TV and well … he’d watched it, hadn’t he? _ ]

Lucky opened his mouth like he was preparing to say something, closed it, opened it again and then said, cautiously, “You think we might be able to meet them?”

Noel didn’t turn around, but Adam could hear the grin in his voice. “Big fan? How about you, Adam?”

“I’ve watched a bit …” He stopped, decided there wasn’t anything really worth lying about, and sighed. “Like every episode. At least twice.”

“You know I was around when all of those storm chasing shows started,” Noel went on, conversationally. “Was just getting started, didn’t have a tour company or anything, just freelancing for severe weather research projects here and there. And I was  _ baffled _ to hear they were gonna make a TV show about storm chasing.” He snorted. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting when it works, but you boys have seen how boring it is the rest of the time. Lots of driving, bust days, or just picking the wrong system.” He rolled a shoulder in a shrug. “They managed it, though. Don’t know how. Suppose we oughta be grateful - the severe weather tour business really picked up after that show aired.” 

Lucky had leaned back and propped his right elbow on the windowsill, chin in his hand. “I mean, a lot of TV is making boring stuff exciting. I went to school with a kid whose Mom was on a reality show - not a main character or anything, but she had to be there for filming a lot just in case - and I got invited along to filming one day. It was  _ really dull _ . We just sat there most of the time.”

“Were you on TV?” Adam asked. Lucky shook his head.

“No way. At the time I thought maybe I wanted to go into politics like my dad, so I didn’t want to be associated with a show that might ruin my image.” He laughed. “I was  _ twelve _ , so I’m not sure what image I was trying to preserve, but I dunno. I was twelve, and I guess it made sense at the time.” He watched the clouds for a minute and then innocently asked, “What about you, Adam? You ever been on TV?”

Adam shook his head fervently. “No way. No, I dunno I just don’t … don’t know if I’m cut out for it. I helped out at the local news station a couple years ago for the like, school-work program, trying to help their meteorologist, but I think mostly I got in the way. And they never let me on camera.”

“I was never much of one for cameras myself,” Noel agreed. “I was on one of the teams in one of the shows - can’t remember which one - while they were filming once, but I never signed their release. They cut me out of everything, except one shot where you could see my back.”

“The ratings never recovered,” Rachael joked, sleepily.

Noel frowned. “It did get cancelled after that season, yeah, but I don’t think my fifteen seconds of fame had anything to do with it. I think mostly people got sick of watching the two team leads argue. Which they did. All the time.”

“That usually makes for good TV,” Lucky said thoughtfully.

“Guess there’s too much of a good thing, sometimes. Oh, hey, looks like they’re pulling off up ahead. Good a place as any to take a break and check the radar, I guess. Clouds look alright.” He glanced at Lucky and Adam in the rearview. “Pit stop?”

“Uh.” They exchanged a look, and Lucky started to wrap a lock of hair around his finger, nervously. “I mean, if it’s okay …”

Rachael snickered in the front seat. “I need to check the radar anyway, see what the NWS is saying about this cell.” She opened her eyes, and pushed her baseball cap back. “Ooh, see the mammatus clouds? Looks like we might be in business.”

“It’s darker off to the west, too,” Noel confirmed. Ahead, the other storm-chasing caravan pulled into a gas station, and they followed, parking along the curb away from the pumps. “Alright guys, come on, I’ll introduce you. They’re a nice crew.”

They  _ were _ a nice crew. Which was cool, Adam thought; they always say never meet your heroes, but he supposed it was alright if they weren’t really his heroes, just storm chasers he really enjoyed watching on telly. He chatted with a few members of the team, even their team lead, as did Lucky, and all of the more experienced chasers urged the two students to talk about their plans for after their trip and their interest in severe weather. They even offered to Noel to let them follow the caravan, although Noel declined politely. 

“We don’t like to get as close as you lunatics.” Noel pointed to his eyebrow. “This is the kind of trouble I get in with a hail storm, can’t imagine what’d happen if I got that close to a tornado,” he added, to laughter and slaps on the back from the other crew.

The other team finished fueling up, and congregated around their lead vehicle, where most of the computer equipment was. Adam, Noel and Lucky trailed back to Rachael, who was sitting on the truck’s back gate, her own computer open. “Looks really good, guys. I think we picked the right one for today.”

“Oh yeah?” Lucky elbowed Adam. “See? You had it. We’ll just listen to you from now on.”

“Mm, not sure that’s strictly advisable,” Adam replied. 

“Nah, it’ll be alright.” Lucky paused to wave -  _ obviously wave _ , Adam thought with a little exasperation - to the 4Runner parked in the neighboring parking lot. The headlights flashed in return. 

“You know them?” Noel asked, puzzled and half-amused.

“Nope, just feeling optimistic.”

Rachael was chuckling, and she shook her head as she said, “I think you’ve been on the road too long. But here we go - looks like this might really do something interesting. It just went under a tornado watch.”

After a brief period of studying the radar screen - Rachael and Noel talking them through aspects of the cell they could see that hinted at which direction might be better to head in - they jumped back into the truck and drove, just a little north. They did follow the other team for a short distance, but eventually the other chasers veered off, holding a more southern path. 

Above, the storm only continued to grow. The sky darkened, the wind kicked up, and the fat, pouchy mammatus clouds gave way to a towering shelf cloud overhung by a massive dark anvil. They drove less then, fine-tuning based on the radar and what they could see, and frequently pulling over to watch.

“It’s rotating,” Lucky said suddenly, during one such stop. “Look!”

It was. Adam rolled his window down, the better to look out and crane his neck to see the clouds above. They were turning, ponderously slowly but noticeably so, anti-clockwise. 

“And see that?” Noel pointed to the west. “Inflow jet.” He jerked the truck back into gear. “We’re too close - gonna head east a few miles. “How’s it moving, Rachael?”

“Tilt just a little south, too,” she said, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Are we gonna put out some probes?” Lucky asked, while Noel navigated over the surface streets and onto dirt backroads. They were way out in the country by now, with only the occasional farm house or building spotting the otherwise empty green landscape. 

Rachael hummed. “Not today. I’m still going through the data from the other day, I think I have enough for now. You guys can focus on the tornado today.”

“Speaking of,” Noel said, still driving, but pointing a finger toward the storm. “That look like a funnel to you all?”

It did. Steel-gray and wedge-shaped, the funnel poked down below the mass of clouds. It was wispy still, not quite certain to be a tornado, but it was unmistakably there. Rachael called it in to the weather service, and a few miles later, Noel pulled off onto the shoulder and hopped out, eye fixed on the bulk of the storm.

“We ought to be good here,” Rachael confirmed, setting her computer carefully on the dash. “You guys just watch close, alright? If it looks weird don’t be afraid to say anything.”

“We will,” Adam promised, before jumping out to stand on the dirt road, Lucky at his side. A moment later, drizzle pocked the road around them, not enough to classify as rain quite yet, but a herald of what was to come. 

The first funnel vanished without ever reaching the ground. Distantly, they could hear the tornado sirens, although this far out the sound was faint. The road was deserted, too, but they could see closer to the rotating mass of the storm there were headlights and cars, presumably other chasers. Traffic, Adam thought, and no wonder Noel was content watching from a distance if they weren’t trying to actively gather any cyclonic information. 

Another funnel poked down, just for a second, before vanishing back into the mesocyclone. And then another, and then two at once. Finally, one of the twins strengthened, reaching further down toward the Earth in a tentative rope-like formation, squiggly and stretched. A moment later, the second funnel vanished, all of the strength of the storm coalescing into the one tornado. Dust started to fly up around the foot of the thing, and Noel whooped. “There you go, look at it go!”

“It’s a nice little drill bit, isn’t it?” Rachael agreed, her camera shutter clicking repeatedly. Noel had his own camera out too, and Adam and Lucky were both filming on their phones as what had started as a narrow little rope of a tornado grew more and more solid. “Very pretty. You guys filming?”

“Yeah,” they confirmed in unison, and although Adam felt a little embarrassed by that, he couldn’t find it in himself to look away and make sure Lucky hadn’t noticed. 

“Look at it go,” Lucky murmured afterwards. “It’s getting pretty big.”

Noel put his camera down for a minute, the better to point at the bottom of the thing as it trundled across the fields. “See the debris at the base of it? It’s not getting a lot of loft, but it is flying. It’s a pretty strong tornado.”

Adam nodded, and then frowned, glancing to the east. “Uh, is that house … like, is it gonna hit that house?”

For a moment, the only sound was the clicking of Rachael’s shutter - which stopped when she realized what Adam had asked - and the soft sprtizing of rain around them. She lowered her camera, studied the tornado for a bit and then said, quietly, “It might.”

Lucky had put his phone down, and was watching too, eyes wide. “Should we do something?”

“It’s too late to warn them it’s coming, not without putting ourselves in danger,” Noel said solemnly. “We could jump in the truck though, pull up a little closer in case it does - we could get there to help quicker.”

Adam already had one hand outstretched toward the door of the truck, but Rachael shook her head. “Let’s wait a minute - it’s hard to see from this distance. If it looks worse when it gets closer, then we’ll go.”

Adam wasn’t sure he liked that answer, but Noel was right: it was too late to move now, or they’d end up in the path of the thing before they had a chance to warn anyone that might be in the house. He snapped a few more photos, mostly to distract himself, while Lucky continued to video. There was more debris around the base of the tornado now, flying in orbit once, maybe twice before being flung out, and it took Adam a few seconds to realize that they weren’t just fenceposts anymore, but whole trees torn from the ground. Not big trees - there weren’t many big trees out here - but trees nonetheless.

He also noted with increasing dread that the tornado was moving closer to the house and the buildings around it. “I hope those people are gone or underground,” Noel muttered. 

Helplessly, Adam glanced back, behind them, and saw Crowley leaning against the 4Runner, Aziraphale stood next to him, likewise watching. He fumbled with his phone and shot off a text: ‘ _ Can you do something _ ?’

“We should get in,” Noel said, letting his camera fall to his side. “I can’t tell from here if it’s gonna hit the house or not, but it’s definitely gonna hit something over there.”

“Yeah,” Rachael agreed, snapping off a few more pictures before jogging back to the truck. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Once in the backseat and with the truck roaring down the road, Adam managed to look away from the tornado, still making its way on a clear collision course for the buildings, when his phone buzzed.  _ ‘I will try to ensure there are no deaths. - A _ ’

Good. Good. Adam swallowed and nodded, and flashed the screen of the phone to Lucky, who was looking rather pale. There was no sound other than the roar of the truck and the rumble of the dirt road, but Lucky nodded when he saw, and took a breath. That done, Adam texted back, ‘ _ Is it angelic or anything? _ ’

Another long minute in which Aziraphale certainly was laboriously typing out a reply, and then, ‘ _ I don’t believe so _ .’ He showed the message to Lucky when he noticed the other boy looking, and they nodded. 

As if responding to the text that she had no way of seeing, Rachael said just loudly enough to be heard, “This is the bad part about storm chasing. It’s all well and good when nothing gets hit, which is most of the time thank God, but sometimes …”

The truck stopped, though Noel left the engine running when he opened the door. “We have to stop here - it’s not safe to go closer yet.”

Adam stepped out as well, significantly less excited than he had been just a few minutes prior. He didn’t bother to close the door behind him. This close, they could hear the roar of the tornado, the screaming winds and debris already lashing at one of the outbuildings. “So we just watch it happen?”

“Yeah.” Rachael was taking pictures again, chronicling the twister’s journey towards the farm. “Like I said - this is the bad part.”

“How strong do you think it is?” Lucky asked quietly. “Can you tell?”

“Probably EF3, judging by the debris,” Noel replied. “If they have a storm shelter and they get down into it, they ought to be alright.”

“If they’re even home,” Rachael added optimistically. “It is about dinner time - they might have gone out tonight. Or be away. You never know.”

Noel sighed, clearly doubtful. “You never know,” he said. “Here it goes.”

Had it been another kind of building - something uninhabited, maybe, like a silo or a shed - the destruction might have made him grin, Adam thought. The tornado moved over the farm at the same slow, unconcerned pace, plucking the roofs off the outbuildings and tossing them down hundreds of yards away. Adam watched, wide-eyed and pale, as the twister moved toward the house. But then, when the thing got close enough that he could properly make out the depth of field at that distance, he realized that it was going to miss. He said so, out loud, with no small amount of relief.

“It’s gonna get the barn, though,” Noel said, even as the roof peeled off the barn and dissolved into the winds. “Lots of debris flying.”

They watched it spin across the farm, still the same narrow drill bit it had been moments ago. It did miss the house, although the roof was littered with debris by the time the tornado moved away, off into the cornfields. Rachael was still photographing. “Let me know when it’s safe to move,” she said to Noel. “I can see the house through my lens - they have some windows out and stuff. We still should make sure they don’t need help.”

“Well yeah,” Noel said. 

Adam, feeling uncertain about it, pulled out his phone and filmed the wreckage of the farm before panning over toward the tornado, still spinning along. It looked thinner though, although maybe that was the angle. The whole thing, now that someone’s farm lay in pieces in front of him, felt voyeuristic, wrong, and his excitement soured in his belly.

_ Why are you here? _ The sour thing asked, feeling like something else, something that wasn’t him.  _ Do you like watching destruction? Is this what you enjoy, Adam Young? _

He shook the thought away. No, no of course not. No, he was here because he wanted to help people, he wanted to be able to predict these kinds of things so people could be warned, and get to safety. He wanted to understand why these things happened, so he could prevent them if possible, save people -

_ Do you like to watch this kind of thing? _

“Let’s go see if everyone’s alright. Come on, Adam!” Rachael called, startling him out of his reverie. He blinked, realized the other three had already started clambering into the truck, and spun on his heel, jumping in through the still-open door. 

“At least it was just the barn.” Noel started down the road, wheels slipping in the mud as the rain followed and slicked the dirt surface. “Hopefully they’re alright, let’s see what happened …”

Adam noticed, looking in the mirrors, that the 4Runner was hanging back, near where they’d stopped to watch. It did nudge up a little, just a bit closer, but Adam would be willing to bet that without any sign of supernatural interference, Aziraphale and Crowley would stay back, out of sight and the sphere of attention. ‘ _ If someone’s hurt what should I do? _ ’ he texted, when Noel turned off the dirt road and onto the farm’s driveway.

The reply was almost immediate. ‘ _ Help them. _ ’

It was raining - really properly raining - when they pulled up to the house and jumped out. Adam’s skin immediately erupted into goosebumps, partially from the rain and the cold and partially from the destruction around them. The barn - a whole barn - lay in bits and pieces all over the property, and some of the windows of the house were broken. Lucky and Rachael were already heading for the front door, Noel hot on their heels, and Adam broke into a jog to catch up, as the shock of the destruction wore off. It smelled like rain, and ozone, and splintered timber, and it sounded like … like …

Someone was yelling. Lucky and Rachael reached the door, and Lucky started pounding on the thing with his fist. “Hello?” Rachael yelled, trying to peer in through one of the broken sidelight windows. “Hello? Anyone in there? D’you need help?”

“Yes!” the reply was from a woman. A moment later, three people came around the side of the house: a woman, a man - no, Adam thought, an older boy, probably about his age - and a young boy. The youngest was cradling his arm close to his body. “Yes, thank God, yes, please, it’s his arm.”

The group rushed over, Noel already on the phone with emergency services. As Adam got closer, he could see the way the little boy’s arm was resting against his body, and it looked wrong. In confirmation, Rachael winced. “Definitely dislocated,” she said, crouching down. “Maybe broken. Don’t worry, he’s calling an ambulance.”

The woman, dark-skinned and dark-haired and dressed comfortably, with bits of grass and hay stuck in her hair, groaned with relief. “Thank God you were so close - it came up so fast, we thought it would go north, and I didn’t hear the sirens, and the boys were in the house -”

“It’s alright, Mom.” The older boy patted his mother on the shoulder. “We’ll be alright.”

“My arm really hurts,” the little boy whimpered. Rachael was looking around, trying to find anything that might help. 

Lucky crouched down, the better to see the boy eye-to-eye, and brushed his hair back behind his ear. “Yeah, I bet. What happened?”

“He tripped down the steps running into the storm shelter,” said the mother, hovering near her son nervously. “We were in such a hurry.”

“Well, at least you got to safety,” Lucky said. “You’ll be alright - the ambulance’ll be here soon and they’ll help you start feeling better.”

“Do you think it would be faster to drive him?” his mother asked. The older son apparently just noticed the damage to the house, and winced, taking in the debris on the roof and the broken windows. “I could take him, my truck’s probably alright, or if … if we could -”

Rachael was picking through the bushes for scraps of feed bags. “We should immobilize it first if we do, so it doesn’t jostle too much. Do you have a pillow case or something in the house that we could use for a sling?”

“Yeah, follow me,” said the older boy, pushing into the house with Rachael on his heels. “Watch the glass. We can see what’s still alright.”

“It really hurts,” the boy repeated, still cradling his arm, tears running down his face. He was quiet, though, and his mother ran her hand through his hair, trying to soothe him. “I know, baby, I know, we’ll get you to the hospital soon.”

“Here.” Without thinking, Adam pulled off his t-shirt and started toward the kid. “I’m gonna kind of support your arm, alright?”

“Okay,” the boy sniffled. 

“What’s your name?” Adam asked, kneeling in the mud. Lucky budged over a little to make room, and the little boy reached up and took his mother’s hand as Adam cradled the injured arm. 

“Josh,” the boy replied. 

“I’m Adam.” He had Josh’s forearm in his left hand, and with his right hand he gently supported the kid’s upper arm. “Ooh, yeah, I bet that hurts,” he said, trying not to wince when he felt the bones shift a little under even a gentle touch. “Lucky, can you like, kind of put the shirt under his elbow?”

Immediately, the other student sprang to action. “Yeah, yeah.”

_ Help him _ , the text had said. Well, he was trying. Of course, he knew nothing about first aid, or how to splint a broken arm or immobilize a dislocated shoulder, but -

_ Help him _ , said something in Adam’s head, something … different. Something not-Adam, like the sour thing from before, but different, softer. He swallowed. Something that made a familiar lurch of power sizzle up his backbone.

“Alright,” he said to Lucky, “I’m gonna hold his arm still, and you can tie that off like, around his neck? Is it long enough?”

“Yeah, it is. Okay, hang on.” Carefully, the taller boy maneuvered around the two of them, bringing the two ends of the shirt together and starting to gingerly tie it. 

“You okay?” Adam asked Josh, who nodded, brown eyes wide and wet with tears and rain. “You know,” Adam said, trying to distract him, trying to think what he was going to do with this power, “I don’t think …”  _ Help him _ . “You know,” he said suddenly, rubbing his thumb across the little kid’s arm, just above the very broken elbow, “I don’t think it’s broken.”

He felt a lurch in his gut, something like when he was flying over Tadfield and making trees grow in Sao Paulo but much smaller, and suddenly, Josh’s arm wasn’t broken. Josh blinked. Lucky tied off the knot, secure enough to keep Josh’s elbow and shoulder still, and Adam moved his hands away. “I think you just dislocated your shoulder. Lucky you, that’s an easy fix.”

Josh looked, amazed, from Adam, to his arm. Carefully, he prodded his upper arm and then, in spite of his mother’s protest, squeezed a little. “How did you do that?” he asked, whipping his head back around to Adam, eyes wide as saucers. “How’d you  _ do _ that?”

“Do what?” Adam stood back, and Josh’s mother bent down into the open space, one hand on her son’s head and the other on his good shoulder. “What’d he do, baby?”

“It feels better. So much better.”

The woman turned around to look to Adam and Lucky. She was crying, although the rain might have made it hard to tell, were her eyes not so red. “Thank you boys. Thank you so much.”

“Mom, he made it feel better, it was broken, but it feels better -”

“He made a sling, baby.” The woman stroked her son’s hair, smiling wetly. “That’ll help it feel better until they can fix it at the hospital.”

“No, but mom it hurt a lot, but now it doesn’t hurt as much.”

“Yes, baby. I’m glad. Oh, baby, I’m so glad.”

Rachael and the older brother returned just then, the older brother’s hands full of a curtain that had clearly just been torn down. “Oh,” he said, when he saw his brother with his arm already in the makeshift sling, and Adam shirtless. “Oh, okay. Hang on, let me get you a shirt.”

“It’s not -” Adam started, but the older boy was already gone, back into the house. He shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said, to no one in particular.

“You’ll get pneumonia or something,” Lucky muttered. He stepped closer to Adam, watching Josh and his mother closely. “That kid’s arm was definitely broken.”

“Hm. Was,” said Adam, just as quietly, just before Rachael picked her way through the debris to stand on his opposite side.

“Pretty good sling,” she said, appraising Adam’s work. “Are you an … an EMT or whatever they have over there?”

Adam shook his head. “Nah. I took a first aid class when I was like fourteen. But I dunno, it just … needed to be done. So I did it.”

She slapped him on the shoulder. “Cool, good job Adam. Hey, Noel!” she turned around, striding through the timbers toward the other chaser. “How long before the ambulance is here? We can give them a lift if -”

“What’d you do?” Lucky asked, again in a low tone. Josh was watching Adam, wide-eyed and beaming more broadly than any kid with a dislocated shoulder had any right to.

Adam shrugged, but he couldn’t help but grin when Josh prodded his arm again and shook his head, disbelieving. Half-laughing, still feeling the sizzle of power in his back, Adam said, “I helped him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo a day late on this one - sorry for the delay! Life and work has been a little wild this week and last, so I couldn't get this chapter edited to where I liked it until tonight, but here we are! Better late than never I guess lol. I would bet there will not be a Wednesday update this week, because work is showing no signs of slowing, but I will do my best to get back on track this Sunday!


	19. I Put My Middle Finger Up At It

Although Adam hadn’t planned to tell his godfathers about the miracle so soon - it was so small, anyway, they couldn’t have spotted it - Crowley had picked up on it immediately. No sooner had the motel room door swung shut than Crowley asked, “What’d you do? Smells like … miracles.” 

And so Adam sighed and confessed, sat cross-legged at the edge of his bed in his brand-new Future Farmers of America T-shirt, on permanent loan from Josh’s very grateful older brother. His godfathers stood or leaned against the wall opposite him, looking in turns anxious (Crowley) and proud (Aziraphale).

“So you just like, rubbed your hand over it and it was fixed,” Lucky said flatly, after Adam finished talking. “Just like that.”

Adam shrugged. “Just like that.”

“And how do you feel now?” Crowley asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Well -” A yawn caught him off-guard, although he tried to squelch it. He huffed out a laugh. “Uh really tired, honestly. Exhausted. And not just like, big day tired,” he added, glancing over to Lucky. “I mean I think we all are that kind of tired, but like … uh, well. I dunno. Feel like I could sleep for a week.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a look. “It was a big miracle for you,” Aziraphale said softly, while Crowley nodded. “They’ll do that, the big ones. You should rest tonight.”

“Wasn’t that big, I didn’t think,” Adam said, even as his eyelids drooped. “I’ve seen you heal broken bones before* - didn’t even break a sweat.”

[*  _ Aziraphale had quite graciously once repaired Pepper’s ankle when she’d jumped off of the tire swing down in the woods, and Brian’s little finger after a missed catch in a game of cricket. And, on one memorable occasion, Crowley’s hip after a tree-climbing misadventure. Not only had the angel never even looked strained, he’d managed to lecture Crowley the entire time. “I told you, vipers are generally a terrestrial species, Crowley, Tree Vipers notwithstanding. I  _ said _ it was a bad idea -” _ ]

“Well, no. But that’s us. You’re you.” Aziraphale still had that same soft, proud smile. “Sleep, Adam. You’ll need it.”

He scooted backwards, toward the pillows, but didn’t lay down just yet. He rather suspected that as soon as he did, he’d be out like a light. “And you didn’t sense anything weird about the storm?”

“As far as we could tell, no. Perfectly normal.” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “ _ Sleep _ , Adam.”

“We have a late morning tomorrow,” he muttered defensively, glancing over to Lucky. The other boy nodded and shrugged. 

“Yeah, but you look beat.”

“Traitor.” Adam leaned back onto his elbows, still fighting sleep, though even then he could feel the dark tendrils of exhaustion pulling him down. “You don’t think me doing that miracle will like, uh, alert anyone, or anything?”

“In the grand scheme of things,” Aziraphale said gently, as he stepped away from the wall to pull the blanket over Adam, “it was a small miracle. Still, if you’re being watched, it might have drawn attention.” He glanced back to Crowley, and then gently pushed Adam down into the pillows. “We’d prefer to be in the room tonight, if you don’t mind.”

Lucky raised his hand. “Human with no magical powers whatsoever is totally cool with that, just saying.”

“Yeah,” said Adam, giving in in the face of Aziraphale’s stern look of concern and Lucky’s anxious smirk. “Alright.” Finally, he let his eyes slide closed. Distantly, he was semi-aware of a murmured conversation between Lucky and Crowley about indigenous plant life, but Adam couldn’t find it in himself to be interested enough to resist the dark, heavy pull of sleep.

-

It was Lucky that shook Adam awake the next morning. Sleepily, he looked to the little desk in the room, and finding it empty he sat up with a jolt, frantic as he looked around the room. “Chill, dude,” Lucky said, one hand on Adam’s shoulder. “They’re right outside, it’s okay. Br - ugh,  _ Aziraphale _ said he was gonna get us some breakfast, and Nanny’s hanging in the hall ‘til he gets back.”

“Oh.” Adam took a breath. “Okay. Sorry, didn’t mean to panic.”

“Understandable.” Lucky shrugged, but didn’t move from his spot next to Adam’s bed. He did cross his arms though, and look down at the floor. Adam watched him shift a little, one foot to the other, and blinked.

“Something up?”

“Kinda.”

His heart sank. Lucky was going to ask him to leave, he assumed. Storm chasing was dangerous enough without an ex-Antichrist around, and after watching Adam just casually (although not that casually, he thought, fighting back a yawn) heal someone’s broken arm he was probably a little freaked out. He hadn’t been around like the Them when things were much weirder, and maybe the more he’d thought about it the more he realized that really, Hastur and Michael were out to get  _ Adam _ and Adam alone, and anyone else would be collateral damage so best to get away. 

“Thanks.”

Adam blinked a few more times and stared up at the other boy, unable to find words for a few seconds. When he did remember one, the word was, “What?”

“ _ Thanks _ ,” Lucky repeated, a little louder. “Uh. For telling me. For indulging me on that ghost tour, I guess, and letting all of this … happen.”

“Uh.  _ Why _ ?” Adam looked from the window of the room, where sunlight was trying to force its way in through the curtains, to the door, as if an answer might be posted anywhere on the walls next to the standard-issue production art. 

Lucky threw his head back and heaved a groaning sigh. “Because … because listen, not that it’s any less  _ weird _ , but a lot of stuff makes sense now. Like, I don’t feel so guilty about not having any kind of deep, emotional connection to my parents. You know I don’t even really miss them? My friends, yeah, but not my parents. The people I really  _ missed _ \- that brought me up when I was little - kind of came back into my life because of you, you know?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Man, last night I was talking to Nanny … Crowley, whatever, and showing him all these pictures on my phone of my friends, and we were talking about school and all the stuff that’s happened since I was like, eight - sorry if we kept you up, by the way -”

“You didn’t,” Adam said, a little faintly, his head swimming.

“- Cool. Anyway, it really um, made me realize that even after they left, they really were sort of my parental figures? I mean they cared about me. And it always kind of hurt that I couldn’t see them - don’t apologize, it’s not your fault, we talked about that too - but now I … I can.” He huffed and looked down at Adam. His expression was, of all things, disgruntled. “So that’s my really sappy confession. I told Aziraphale to get you pancakes.”

Adam took a minute to digest that. “Thanks.” He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged his arms around them. “I thought you were gonna tell me to leave,” he confessed.

Lucky, in response, flopped back onto his own bed, arms outstretched, with another great sigh. “You know, I thought about it. When I first found out. I really did. I thought maybe I should let someone erase my memory and just go back to being the old me. That whole first day after. But like I said: it’s different now. My life’s different, and uh, much, much weirder, but it was pretty weird to start, and things  _ make sense _ .” He forced a laugh. “Not everything, obviously.”

“What doesn’t?” Adam asked, watching the other boy carefully.

“Uh, well … mostly ball lightning and how I feel about my friend Hal, but that’s not something you can help with, I think.”

Adam nodded. “Probably not.” He let out a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Uh, um. And I wanna say thank you too, obviously.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I mean, for letting me stay, yeah, but also …” He swallowed. “Your life would have been … very different, if I hadn’t existed. Um. And mine would have been really different if you hadn’t. So more than just letting me stay, I guess. Thanks for … existing. For not trying to kill me.” More quietly he added, feeling very small, “For not hating me.” 

Lucky lifted his head to look at Adam, the two of them watching one another for a few beats in the quiet room. “No problem,” he said, after a while. “It wasn’t anything you could help, Adam. You were a baby. We were both babies,” he added, propping himself up on his elbows. “But as weird as it is … I dunno, it all seems like it’s working out.”

“Even though someone’s trying to kill me,” Adam added.

“Nah.” Lucky waved a hand. “What’s an Archangel and a Duke of Hell to like, Crowley and Aziraphale and the power of friendship or whatever?” He smiled and let his head fall back onto the mess of crumpled blankets. “We got this.”

Adam snorted. “I appreciate the confidence.”

“Anytime.”

The air conditioner kicked on, and outside some insect started making noise. Another hot, humid day then. Good for storms. “Friendship?” Adam asked, looking at the drawn curtains.

“Uh. Sure. Is that weird?”

“Don’t think so.” He slumped back against the headboard. After another minute or so, he ventured, “And I know I said I probably couldn’t help with - Hal, yeah? - but uh, you wanna tell me about them?”

Lucky sighed, and covered his face with his hands. For a second, Adam worried that he might have hit a nerve, overstepped, gone too far, but then the other boy groaned and said, “Alright, well, where do I  _ start _ ?”

-

The drive to northern Nebraska was relatively short, and in spite of the positively enormous breakfast Aziraphale had eventually supplied them with, Adam felt curiously light throughout the journey. Chatter in the car was lighter, too: Noel’s injury finally was improving enough that he could leave the bandage off and see out of that eye, Rachael’s favorite baseball team was doing well in early games, Lucky and Adam had hashed out a possible way for Lucky to approach Hal about his feelings, and Adam … Adam felt good. More normal. More like things were the way they’d been when he started, even though Lucky knew the truth now and there were still at least two supernatural beings trying to kill him, possibly more.

To be fair, he reasoned, the assassination attempts had probably been in the works long before he’d come to America. It was just that he knew about it now. But there was something to that whole ‘knowledge is power, power is responsibility’ thing.

It was good the drive was short too, because even before they’d pulled out of the parking lot, tornado watches were blaring from their phones, and the sky to the north looked ominous. “Good call.” Noel said, while Rachael showed them the monster cell that was already taking shape on radar. 

“There’s no way this thing isn’t dropping a tornado today,” said Rachael, before handing the computer back to Lucky and Adam. “Take a minute, look at the radar, and tell me what you see about that storm that indicates an extremely high likelihood of severe weather. And ‘the tornado watch’ is not an acceptable answer.”

Today, they talked it out together. Lucky always paid more attention to CAPE than Adam, and Adam was more comfortable with atmospheric wind shear. As they reached each conclusion, they would run it by Rachael, who would happily confirm their findings, or give them a gentle push in the correct direction. 

“And I mean the most obvious is just the shape of the thing, especially right here.” Lucky turned the computer to Rachael and indicated a notch in the most active area, preceded by heavy cloud cover and high humidity. “That looks like it could start to rotate really easily.”

Rachael grinned at both of them, and gently took the computer back. “Really good, guys. You’ve come a long way already. I think if either of you decided to give this a run for longer than a few weeks, you’d end up being pretty good at it.”

Both Lucky and Adam blushed at that, and found they didn’t really have a good set of words to say thank you. Rachael apparently had expected something of that nature, because she just started laughing, turned around, and launched into a series of directions to get Noel close enough to the storm to see, but not so close as to get right underneath the area with the most tornadic potential.

Adam’s phone buzzed an alert: a message from Lucky. ‘ _ we make a good team _ ’

He smiled at Lucky then, across the back seat, before hastily looking back down at his phone. ‘ _ Yeah _ .’

As Noel drove north and slightly west, clouds mounded higher and higher, and the sky got darker and darker. Eventually, it began to take on a greenish cast that Adam had become familiar with: tornadoes were more than highly likely, they were almost guaranteed. He shifted around in the seat, excited, watching the clouds for any sign of lightning, or hail, or rotation, but even with his excitement, worry wriggled into his mind.

‘ _ Everything okay back there? _ ’ he texted to Crowley, when a few attempts at reassuring himself that everything was fine failed to help him feel less nervous. The reply was long-coming, and when he read the response and saw it was signed with Aziraphale’s typical ‘A’, he reasoned that was probably why.

‘ _ It’s very active, and there is quite a bit of energy, but nothing unusual. Are you well? - A. _ ’

‘ _ Yeah, everything’s fine. Just checking. _ ’ He took a breath, felt the twist of worry in his gut settle, and went back to looking out of the window.

They saw the first funnel around two-thirty; early in the day for tornadoes. Noel pulled off to the side of a road - they were, as usual, out in the middle of a mass of fields, although this time there was a relatively large town (for, Adam assumed, the midwest) several miles off to the east. They’d heard the tornado sirens there blaring before they’d even noticed the funnel, and ultimately it had been Lucky that spotted the thing, once they all started looking.

“This isn’t gonna be the only one,” Noel said, hands on his hips as he studied the sky. Rachael was next to him, using his nice camera to snap shots of the mesocyclone, which was noticeably defined; a giant anti-clockwise ring shaped from clouds and twisting lazily around in the sky to their northwest. 

“No. Huge potential in this storm.” Rachael paused in taking photos to wave as a truck pulled over and someone inside called her name. Other storm chasers, apparently, judging by the brief conversation that followed. 

“I’m not loving that we’re in the same spot they’re hanging out,” Noel said, once the other truck had pulled away. “That was Ray and Mike, right?”

Rachael nodded. “Yeah. They’re aiming to get in the path of whatever might come and throw out some probes, see if they can get a twister to pick them up.”

Noel sucked his teeth. “Don’t like that. Think we ought to go a little east?”

The group of them looked up toward the clouds, and waited for a minute while Noel and Rachael made up their minds. “Yeah,” Rachael concluded eventually, as another funnel poked out beneath the wall not a mile to their west, still slightly north. “Yeah, let’s get back in the truck and head southeast a little. You two okay with that?”

“Whatever you say,” said Lucky, just as Adam said, “Definitely.” They piled back in and Noel pulled away, while the other three kept their eyes fixed on the sky.

“You know,” Rachael said, after they’d gone about five minutes to the southeast and she’d taken a moment to look at her laptop again, “I think it’s coming south.”

“Really?” Noel leaned over to look, and Adam and Lucky sat forward. Sure enough, the mass of storm on the radar had shifted track slightly, curling southward toward them. “Huh. Weird. Guess we can go more east.”

“Storms don’t usually move south, right?” Lucky asked.

Noel shrugged. “They can. But in this area of the world,  _ most _ will go on a sort of north-easterly path. Not to say they don’t do other things - weird things - but it’s not typical.” He snorted. “Years ago, when I was younger, I remember we were chasing this one squirrely little storm that kept dropping small twisters - EF1, 2 things, nothing awful but destructive enough - and it looped back on itself  _ twice _ . Almost like it was chasing us. We almost got hit at one point - couldn’t find a road to get us away.” He laughed. “Lloyd drove us through a cow pasture then, knocked over the fence and everything. The farmer was not happy.”

Adam smirked. “Can’t imagine he was.”

“S’why we stay off private property at all costs.” Noel paused at a stop sign to study the storm, and made a decision to turn east. “Would’a been one thing if we could have just paid him for the repairs, but we were young and broke. We ended up losing three chasing days helping fix that damn fence.” He shook his head. “I’m not up for installing fence-posts like that again, I’ll be honest.”

“I’d rather not either, if it’s all the same,” Rachael added with a grin. “Alright - pull off here?”

The truck rumbled to a stop on the dirt shoulder again, and they found themselves standing in front of the bumper, watching the sky. Two more attempts at funnels formed and dissolved, although the second might have been an interrupted tornado - Lucky swore he saw debris on the ground. Shortly after that funnel retreated back to the cloud, two more poked below the wall, and almost simultaneously, both touched down.

“Twins!” Rachael crowed before she and Noel both started documenting the event, Noel with the camera and her with the video camera. “You guys better be filming, this isn’t something you see every day.”

With a glance to his left, Adam confirmed that Lucky also had his phone out and was tracking the tornadoes. Adam himself had started as soon as he saw the twin funnels emerge. “We are,” he breathed, watching the two twisters swirl over the cornfield. “Wow.”

“So sometimes,” Noel said, eye glued to his viewfinder and shutter clacking over and over, “you see this. Rarely, but it’s not unheard of. You guys know why, either of you?”

Lucky spoke first, while Adam was still trying to gather his thoughts into something coherent. Watching the twin tornadoes was a little distracting, and he found himself unable to really wrangle the conglomeration of concepts in his mind. “So a tornado is generally much larger than the suction vortex that’s visible, with tornado-force winds extending from feet to maybe even miles on either side of the base you can see.”

“Yep,” Noel said. “And so?”

“So sometimes, there can be multiple suction vortices in one tornado and it  _ looks like _ there’s more than one tornado, but they’re actually part of the same tornado.”

“Exactly.” He paused taking pictures long enough to point to the twisters. “If this was a higher precipitation system we would probably see one big cyclone, rather than these two discreet vortices, but since there’s not a ton of rain we’re really just seeing each vortex individually due to the debris.”

They watched it move across the fields for a minute or more, standing in awed quiet, but there was something bothering Adam about it, he realized, as he filmed. Although he didn’t move his phone he did look up, away from the screen, and directly watched the two tornadoes for a few seconds to confirm his suspicions. “Is it not moving?”

Rachael glanced over, keeping her camera trained on the storm. “I was just thinking the same thing. You know, the woman I learned to chase with used to say if a tornado looks like it’s sitting still, it’s either moving towards you, or away from you, and you’d better be damn sure which.”

Noel lowered his camera and studied the storm with them for a bit, quiet except for the wind of the storm and the trill of insects in the fields around. “I think it’s toward,” Adam said softly after a time. Lucky was nodding in agreement.

A bolt of lightning arced between the two vortices, and Rachael jumped. “Woah. I got that,” she said, confirming she was still filming. “But yeah, Adam, you’re right: definitely coming toward us.”

“Well then let’s move.” Noel didn’t really need to say it aloud - they were all already walking hurriedly back toward their seats in the truck - but it felt good to have the confirmation. “Go a little more east, maybe a bit north.”

“We’ll have to watch traffic; that’s closer to town.”

Lucky and Adam watched the tornadoes, craned around to look through the back part of Adam’s window. The next time they stopped again, a few minutes later, the twin vortices had coalesced into one thick, dark wedge. “It’s picking up more debris,” said Rachael. A bolt of lightning cracked out from the clouds at the top of the tornado. “Look at that! Lots of electricity with this one.”

“Should we put probes out?” Lucky asked, and Rachael shook her head firmly.

“Not with tornadoes around, they’re not built to stand up to that. If they caught lightning, great, but if they got caught up in the tornado they’d be wrecked and there would go that probe.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Lightning isn’t super common with tornadoes,” she went on. “Usually when the tornado touches down you see a decrease in lightning because the energy is routed elsewhere. It comes back when the tornado goes back up, but generally high-lightning systems and tornadic systems aren’t the same.”

Adam hadn’t bothered to take his phone out this time around, instead decided to just watch the thing. It was … changing, he thought. Quicker. The one they’d seen the day before had moved slowly and taken its time across the fields, across the farm, but this one was definitely going faster and, again he noticed, coming towards them. He swallowed as another bolt of lightning snapped out from the clouds, and had his phone out of his pocket before the roll of thunder had stopped. ‘ _ This storm is weird. _ ’ He said the same aloud as well, and exchanged a glance with Lucky.

“Lots of lightning,” Lucky said quietly.

“Yeah.” Adam took a deep breath. “And I think it’s still coming toward us.”

Noel nodded. “I’ll second that. It’s moving pretty good, too.” He bit his lip. “Alright, let’s get back into the truck and cut east. We need to get outta here.”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Once back on the road, Adam looked down at his phone and saw an unread message. ‘ _ Yeah. Not liking the lightning. Aziraphale says it feels spooky _ .’ He looked up and saw Lucky watching him. ‘Crowley?’ the other boy mouthed quietly. He nodded, and showed him the text.

“Spooky?” Lucky’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Quietly, hoping Rachael and Noel didn’t overhear in the close confines of the truck - and the way the wind was whipping around them, it was a  _ possibility _ \- Adam whispered, “Usually uh that’s like, Aziraphale code for um.” He noted the conversation in the front seat had stopped, although Rachael and Noel were well occupied with watching the tornado. Instead of continuing to speak, he raised both hands up and mimed a pair of horns.

Lucky frowned for a minute, and then realized what Adam was trying to say, his eyes going wide. “Oh.” He leaned across the seat to better see the tornado and winced when another bolt of lightning shot out of it, blindly reaching into the clouds to the east. “Uh oh.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Uh oh.”

After another ten or so minutes of eastward travel, and Noel stopped again. Again, they all stepped out of the truck to study the tornado. The town was directly to their north now, out of the path of the thing, though they could still hear the sirens loud and clear. This time, they weren’t the only truck parked on the shoulder, and a line of storm chasing vehicles - including The Beast - were stretched out in front of and behind them.

The tornado swirled on.

“Hey, Noel!” One of the other chasers - an olive-skinned woman with long, dark hair streaked with a few grays, caught sight of them from three or four cars back and waved her arms. “Hey!” She jogged up. “Long time no see! Hi, Rachael. You have students with you?”

Unsure of where to look - must be a chaser thing, Adam thought, having casual conversation while a tornado was a scant few miles away - he looked to her briefly and waved. Lucky managed to have the presence of mind to confirm that, and Adam tore his eyes off the tornado long enough to shake her hand while Noel introduced them.

“Lucky, Adam,” he said, indicating the two of them. “Going into college for meteorology and geology this fall, right?” They both nodded. “This is Beth Lovejoy. She’s another chaser, one of the unsung heroes of tornado research.” He jerked a thumb toward her, while she laughed and waved a hand as if to stop him. “ _ Nobody  _ in the business gets as many probes in the path of tornadoes as this lady.”

“Stop it,” she said with a good-natured push on Noel’s shoulder. “Look at you, hanging near the bear’s cage. I thought you didn’t go in for that anymore.” Her eyes narrowed. “What happened to your face?”

“Hail,” Noel answered simply. “And I  _ don’t _ like being in the line like this. Not that it’s not a joy to see you, Beth, but I’m not loving that you’re here with us.”

Beth laughed and crossed her arms. “Understood. This is a wild one, huh?” She glanced to Lucky and Adam. “All kinds of weird stuff for you guys to see: lightning, twin vortices, a southerly trajectory. Have you seen twins before?”

“N - Well, there were two funnels on the storm we saw yesterday,” Adam said, not looking away from the tornado. “But only one touched down.”

Beth nodded. “Pretty powerful storm, too.” She turned away to study the tornado. “I dropped a few probes to the north to see if I could get some pressure and wind speed readings, especially with those twin vortices, but I think it’s coming more toward us.” A passenger van drove by, briefly blocking their view. “Looks like Andy’s tour group is out.” She sighed. “I knew I should have dropped them more south.”

“Yeah, well, we’re gonna head out too.” Noel shook his head. “This close isn’t for us.”

Adam sagged a little with relief and started back toward the car. Beth was talking, saying that the storm was fairly low in precipitation, and even if they went north they still ought to be able to see the tornado without staying in the path, when Adam’s phone buzzed again.

He glanced at the message and barely managed not to whimper. ‘ _ Really spooky. You need to move _ .’

His face must have shown something, because Lucky was at his shoulder in a second. “What’s up?” He read the message. “Oh. Oh, shit.” More lightning broke through the clouds and he winced. “How,” he whispered, voice low, watching as Beth and Noel and Rachael exchanged goodbyes, “do you talk them into trying to outrun it?”

“I dunno.” He didn’t look away from the message. “But Noel was saying we can go north, so maybe it can’t follow us. It’s only been going southeast so far.”

“Even if it’s …” Lucky waved his hands toward the tornado, which was still on a fixed trajectory straight toward them, “ _ spooky _ ?”

Adam breathed, finally looking up from the text to see the twister. “I dunno. But we have to go. Quickly.”

Fortunately, Noel and Rachael were of the same opinion, and as soon as they’d finished saying goodbye they were in the truck and on the road, taking a northward turn as soon as they could. The tornado was now clearly visible out of the left side of the truck, to the west, and Noel was the only one not watching it, instead navigating the roads, which were rapidly becoming congested with afternoon traffic.

“It’s been on the ground for a while now,” Rachael was saying. She opened her computer and booted up the radar. “What, at least half an hour?”

“At least,” Noel agreed. “We’re just gonna go north, get out of the way entirely, and if we lose sight of it in the rain, well, rather that than get run over.”

“Agreed,” Rachael said, while Adam and Lucky nodded fervently along. 

They headed due north for a while - at least ten or fifteen minutes - and watched. The concerning thing, Adam thought, was how the tornado never really seemed to drop behind them. He shifted in his seat, watching the lightning crackling around the mesocyclone, shooting from one side to the other, and tried to gauge its path. It had arced to the south of the town, blessedly not hitting any buildings that Adam could see, but even now it was turning  _ north _ . He took a few deep breaths.

‘ _ Can you do anything? _ ’ he texted to Crowley. A quick glance in the side mirror confirmed the 4Runner was behind them, not nearly as far back as usual, which helped his nerves, but considering the tornado continued to loom out of the window just to his left, it was a small consolation.

They were well away from the thing the next time they stopped. This time, Adam and Lucky were the only ones that jumped out with Noel, Rachael saying she needed to check something on the computer. The tornado was to the south of them now - well, southwest, but  _ well _ south - and in spite of the increase in rain falling where they’d stopped it still wasn’t a bad spot to stand and watch. Adam noted with relief that the lightning was south too, nearer the tornado itself.

“Think we’re safe?” Lucky asked. Noel answered to the affirmative, though Adam knew he hadn’t been the one his friend had wanted to hear from. 

Adam cocked his head. “It looks like it’s not moving again.”

Noel made a noise that sounded uncertain. “Well, maybe. Maybe it’s slowing down - it has been going for a while. Eventually they do run out of steam.”

“Or maybe it’s turning,” Adam said nervously.

“Maybe,” Noel allowed, “but it’s unlikely. Real unlikely.”

With a glance back to confirm the 4Runner was there - it was, and Crowley had pulled off only about fifty yards back from them - Adam said, “I think I’m gonna run back to take a few photos back there. Uh. Is that okay?”

Noel considered it. “Alright,” he said slowly. “Don’t go far. Not past that other truck. If we have to move -”

“Got it.” Adam was already jogging, back toward the car. He pulled his phone out, mostly for the look of it, and stopped only when he was even with the driver’s window of the 4Runner. He held up his phone as if he were filming, but the screen was black. He heard the electric whirr of the window behind him. “Is this chasing me?” he asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

Crowley leaned out of the window, folding his arms on the door of the car. “I think so.”

“Can you make it stop?”

He didn’t turn to look, but from the sound of the rustling behind him, Aziraphale had scooted over closer to Crowley. “Weather is difficult, Adam. It takes a great deal of power to manipulate,” the angel said.

“You did it with the lightning,” he said, shooting a glance back over his left shoulder to Crowley. “Is that … easier?”

“It’s smaller. More localized.” Crowley waved a hand at the tornado. “This is big. You have to move around a lot of thermodynamic fields and whatever. It’s out of my league.”

Adam frowned. “But you can stop time?”

“Works differently. It’s like … like the difference between physics and calculus. They’re sort of related, but just because you’re good at one doesn’t mean you’re not shit at the other.” He sighed. “Good news is, even with supernatural intervention a storm has a finite amount of energy. Eventually, if you keep running, it’s gotta burn itself out.”

Adam nodded. “So we just keep running?”

“It’s the easiest solution,” Aziraphale responded. “As long as you stay away from others so it doesn’t hit them on the way, it should eventually run itself out.”

“Is it Hastur doing it?” Adam asked, taking a second to glance down the road toward Lucky and Noel. The other boy was watching him closely, but Noel’s attention was firmly on the tornado. “You said spooky, so I assumed Hastur was doing it.”

Crowley’s tongue flicked out. “Mostly. But it’s not just him. There’s some  _ smite-y _ type energy in there as well.” As if just realizing how he was sitting, he pulled his elbows back into the car, off of the metal body. “Probably safest if I stay in here, actually.”

“So it’s both of them, working together.” He looked back to the other two again to see Crowley looking very anxious, and Aziraphale shaking his head ruefully. “It is, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale spoke this time. “As much as I have trouble imagining it, yes. Yes, I think so.” He looked sharply right, and then pointed that direction, toward Noel and Lucky and the truck. “Go, Adam. You need to keep moving. We can protect you if you can’t outrun it to a limited amount, but best to keep moving.”

He nodded. “Okay.” As he ran back toward the truck, he heard Rachael yell from inside: “It’s turning north! We need to move!”

And move they did, speeding north further, until they reached an intersection where Noel turned sharply  _ west _ , back towards the body of the storm. “We’ll just go back toward the rain,” he grumbled as he did so, checking the position of the tornado in the mirrors. “We’ll probably lose sight of it, but at this point I think we’ve seen enough, hm?”

“It’s like it’s chasing us,” Rachael agreed. In the back seat, Lucky looked to Adam, obviously worried, and Adam nodded. Lucky grimaced. “I’ll be happy to get out of its way, anyway. If you head southwest that should put us right behind it.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. You guys okay with that?”

“Oh, yeah,” Adam said, practically sagging with relief. He could still see the thing, ringed with swirling debris, trees bending and flying up into the air as it passed. “Yeah, let’s just get away.”

“It’s a big, nasty one, that’s for sure. Glad it hasn’t knocked into anything.” Adam looked behind them, relieved to see the tornado falling away as they sped across the farm roads. Rain started pelting the windshield as well, a good sign that they were heading out of the most dangerous part of the storm and into the trailing rainclouds. He allowed himself a little sigh of relief and turned back forward, only to realize Rachael was looking at him in the rearview. 

“I saw you talking to that car back there,” she said, cocking her head toward the road behind them. Adam didn’t have to look to know Crowley and Aziraphale were still following. “Everything okay?”

“Oh.” He looked over to Lucky, but the other boy was still trying to watch the tornado, even though it was out of sight now, firmly behind them and disguised by rain besides. “Yeah they’re um, lost. And kind of freaked out. So I told ‘em just to follow us, ‘cause we’re trying to stay out of the way, too.”

Noel nodded. “Good thing we’re heading away, then. That was nice of you. Were they chasing initially?”

“I guess.” Adam rolled a shoulder. “I didn’t really ask. Dunno why else they’d be out here, though.”

“Amen to that.”

Noel drove for even longer this time, heading deep into the storm, westward and south, while rain lashed the truck and lightning flashed overhead. Adam took the chance to text Lucky a summary of his conversation with his godfathers (their godfathers? he wondered, and then left that thought for another time), explaining that their best chance would be to outrun it until the storm naturally ran out of energy.

‘ _ so they cant just make a tornado then _ ’ Lucky texted back.

‘ _ I didn’t get that impression. I don’t think so. We just have to keep moving until they run out of steam to power it _ .’

In the front seat, Noel drove on. “What’s it doing?” he asked Rachael, possibly in response to a frustrated noise she’d made. “Something up?”

“You’re not gonna believe it,” she said, and Adam’s heart sank. “It’s turning around.”

“ _ What _ ?”

She spun a finger around in a looping motion. “It’s turning around on its own track. Doing a loop-de-loop.”

Noel glanced over. They were at a light, waiting on the change from red to green, and around them the outskirts of whatever little town they’d been circling stood in the rain. “It’s still south of us though, right?”

“Well …”

He blinked. “You’re kidding me.”

Rachael groaned. “I’m not. It seriously is like it’s chasing us. Just keep going - it’s moving fast, but we’re outrunning it.”

“Shit. Should I go north, then?”

Rachael thought it over. “You could, a little.” She looked around to the buildings as they drove by. The tornado sirens were still wailing. “It might hit this town,” she said, very quietly. “Where is this?”

“Dunno. Missed the sign in the rain.” Noel’s jaw set. “Well, they got the sirens going. They talking about it on the radio?” Rachael turned the radio on to a local channel long enough to confirm that the alert system was indeed activated, repeating that there was a tornado on the ground in the area and that everyone needed to seek shelter. Noel puffed out a breath he must have been holding. “Then that’s all we can do.”

Adam glanced desperately out of the side mirror, to the cars behind them, not just the 4Runner anymore, but other cars, cars with strangers in them who never asked to be part of this. “We could try going more north?” he suggested. Although he attempted to keep the desperation out of his tone, it must have slipped through, because Rachael actually looked away from the screen, instead checking him over. He didn’t say it was to draw the tornado away, but it was close.

“It’s already going north,” she said carefully. “We’ll go south - that’s our best bet to get away. Okay, Adam?” She smiled a little. “It’ll be alright, we’ve been doing this for a while.”

He shrugged and attempted to put on an air of casuality. “Okay, yeah. Yeah, it was just a thought.”

Noel drove more and Adam gripped the upholstery with white knuckles all the while. In the town a new problem arose: traffic. Certainly, traffic laws themselves became much more flexible in severe weather situations, but then again, everyone was on the lookout for the next tornado-fleeing maniac, and there was an extra second or two of pause at every intersection and crossroads. Additionally, Rachael and Noel didn’t appear to be the only ones with their eyes on the storm, and with every minute there seemed to be more and more cars on the road.

Traffic backed up. They were on the outskirts of town now, but they were at a standstill, wedged in a line of cars. Noel swore. “Don’t these people have shelters?” he griped. “You’re supposed to go underground, not try to drive away from the damn thing!” He laid on the horn, and leaned out of the window into the driving rain to try to see his way forward. “Get a move on!”

Lucky had looked over a bit ago, and found Adam pale-faced, staring at the back of the headrest in front of him, lips moving faintly. His fingers had gone entirely bloodless, clenched hard into the seat, and he was doing all he could: an endless mantra of  _ don’t hit the town, don’t hit the town, don’t hit the town _ . Lucky swallowed and leaned forward in a bid to catch a glimpse of Rachael’s radar screen.

“Oh,” he said, as the hook and the white-spotted debris cloud stood clear, just a few miles northeast of town and moving southwest. “Oh, shit.”

“It’s gonna be fine,” Rachael and Noel said at the same time. Then, they exchanged a look, and Noel hit the gas. The truck swerved off of the road, out of the traffic, and onto the grassy shoulder, barreling along over bump after bump, tires slipping in the mud. 

“I’ll pay for the ruts,” Noel grit out. “Fuck this, we gotta go.”

Rachael’s jaw was clenched, and quietly, grimly, she voiced the thought Adam had been pushing so hard against. “It’s gonna hit that town.”

“No.” Lucky looked around desperately. “All these people - what are they gonna do?”

“Should have got into shelters or underground instead of jumping in their cars, is what they  _ should  _ have done,” Noel snapped. “Too late for that, though. Drive!” he shouted then, as the road narrowed and a car on the shoulder blocked their way. The driver of the car was out in the middle of the road with a camera, apparently oblivious to the danger he was in. Noel rolled the window down to shout at him.

Adam looked over to Lucky, wide-eyed and panicked. “This can’t happen. I can’t let this happen.”

“Adam -” 

“You can’t do anything about it,” Rachael said, while Noel carried on yelling at the man in the road with the camera. He had a high-visibility vest on, as if that would make a difference. And he was waving at Noel as if to say ‘it’s fine’, in spite of Noel’s repeated hollers that a tornado - a  _ rain-wrapped _ tornado, the most dangerous sort, because you can’t see them until they’re on top of you - was coming, and they all needed to  _ go _ . “Guys, in the event that um, well, we get hit, we need to get into crash positions -”

“This can’t happen,” Adam repeated, and then he opened the door. Rain surged into the car, carried by the howling wind. Rachael, Lucky, and Noel all started yelling, but he couldn’t be bothered to sort out who was saying what. Instead, he jumped out into the road, and ran backwards, shouting, “This can’t happen!” once more over his shoulder.

The wind was getting harder to walk against, and the closer he got to the 4Runner the more he realized it wasn’t just rain pinging off his face, but tiny hailstones, dirt, and small bits of debris. It was close. The 4Runner was closer though, a few cars behind, and Crowley and Aziraphale were already out of it, standing on the shoulder and staring into the storm. He forced his way toward them, through the wind, and when he got close enough that he thought he might have a chance of being heard he yelled again, “ _ This can’t happen _ !”

Crowley spun on him and had grabbed the neck of Adam’s shirt before the boy had time to register what he was doing. “ _ What the fuck, Adam _ ?” With a jolt, Adam realized that behind the sunglasses, his eyes were glowing red.

“You have to stop it,” Adam yelled, desperate to be heard over the wind. “Please. All these people, they don’t deserve -”

“We can’t ssstop a tornado,” Crowley repeated, the sibilants drawn out perhaps longer than strictly was normal. “Him or I - it’ss out of our purview.”

Adam yelled again, incoherent at first, rain mixing with tears and slicking down his cheeks. “It can’t happen! You can’t let these people get hurt! Aziraphale, please!  _ Please _ , you have to do a miracle!”

“He  _ can’t _ , Adam; it’s a tornado it’s -” and he stopped then, because in the rain, Aziraphale had grabbed his arm. 

Adam looked to the angel, desperately, and tried to gulp in breaths as he cried. It was hard - the air was so thick now, and moving so fast, and so full of rain. “I can’t stop the tornado, Adam,” Aziraphale repeated, although he kept a firm hold of Crowley’s arm and didn’t look away from the demon as he spoke. “But protecting people is … well, I can do that. Crowley, dear, I’m going to need your help with this one. There are a  _ lot _ of people. If you can stabilize the atmosphere just a bit, just enough to take some of the kick out of it.”

“Angel -”

Aziraphale squared up his shoulders and ignored Crowley’s protests. Adam blinked, partially against the rain, but also partially because Aziraphale had just started glowing with a bright, warm golden light that seemed to intensify by the millisecond. He stood there, a beacon in the storm in a camel-hair coat from 1855, and in another blink he had wings, as well. 

“What’s he doing?” Adam yelled. Crowley snarled and let his own dark wings out - warped slashes of black in the driving rain compared to Aziraphale’s overwhelming brightness - and fixed his attention on the clouds above. 

“A  _ real  _ miracle,” the demon snarled. “Adam, you have to help with this.” A length of wood flew towards them, and Adam almost cried out to warn Aziraphale that it was coming, it would hit him, but as soon as the board got within two feet it splintered into innumerable pieces before igniting and whirling away into the wind, no more than a handful of embers.

“What should I do?” he asked, awed, and he realized that in spite of the driving rain, in spite of the relentless winds and the fact that the cars around them were rocking precariously, in spite of the roofs he could see peeling off houses a quarter of a mile away, even through the rain, he had a permeating feeling that seemed to go all the way into his soul which said, ‘ _ Be not afraid _ .’

Crowley grit his teeth which had become a good deal longer and sharper than usual. “I need you to imagine this storm is the shittiest, least tornado-y storm possible, Adam. I need you to  _ believe _ that with every part of yourself, alright?” Adam nodded, and Crowley watched to make sure he did, before black scales erupted up the sides and back of his neck, and his fingers stretched into thin, burnt talons. “And don’t touch me. Or him.”

For that, at least, he didn’t need telling twice: this was one of those times when in spite of all his experience with them being human-shaped, Crowley and Aziraphale reminded him forcefully that they were very much  _ not human _ . Besides, the wind was getting to be too powerful to stand in, anyway, and so defensively, Adam crouched down by the bumper of the 4Runner, and looked up.

_ You’re not spinning _ , he thought, throwing all his weight into it, trying to block out the chaos swirling around.  _ You’re not spinning, you’re not spinning, you don’t have the rotation _ . Crowley was yelling, although Adam wasn’t sure what, and wasn’t even sure it was in English. Or any known language, at that. He shook himself, gripped the hood of the car more tightly, and thought,  _ You’re not spinning, your vertical wind shear is shite, your CAPE is absolute hot garbage, there’s not enough heat, there’s not enough heat, the cold front will fall _ .

_ ‘You are safe _ ’, said the warm feeling swelling in his chest.  _ ‘You will be well. Be not afraid. _ ’

“You’re a shitty storm!” Adam started to yell then, loud enough to be heard over the rain. He was braced hard against the front of the 4Runner, and the wind was pushing him and the car forward, his sneakers leaving muddy trenches on the ground. “You’re a shitty storm, and you don’t have the power, you’re barely strong enough to make EF1! You don’t even have a proper updraft!” His shouting was all nonsense now, and he was pretty sure that if the people in the cars around them had any idea what he was yelling, they would probably try to have him committed. If they survived, anyway, and didn’t take greater issue with the now-very-obvious angel and demon duo next to him.

But they would survive.  _ Be not afraid _ .

“What is that, a tornado? Nice try!” 

At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, carrying him on hope and wishes. But no; he could see the clouds overhead growing thready, turning from a thunderhead to so much scud right before his eyes. He blinked the rain from his eyes, and licked his lips, and yelled more loudly, stronger, “That’s rear-flank downdraft if you’re  _ lucky _ ! Maybe straight-line winds!  _ Maybe _ !” Feeling bolder by the second, because the storm was dying,  _ just like that it was falling apart _ , he yelled, “But really you’re just a stupid squall! Just a stupid squall who won’t hurt anybody!” 

Crowley and Aziraphale were both shouting now, and the light from the angel had grown so intense that Adam had to squint even to see the sky. It was strange, being in the middle of a roaring storm but lit up bright as day, each raindrop a prism unto itself. He was distracted by it, just for a second, but then he jerked back to the situation at hand and realized  _ there was no tornado _ .

It was gone. There were piecemeal buildings, and debris on the ground everywhere, and the wind was still whipping at his clothes but, he thought, he didn’t need to brace against the car anymore. Didn’t need to lean against the wind. The cars around him were still, finally, and although the rain kept falling in great sheets, the strongest gusts died away and left only cold breezes in their place. 

Joy rushed through him then: pure, unadulterated joy, that was hot and strong and filled his chest up like a balloon. He whooped. “Yeah!” And then, because he could, and because he was eighteen, he made a very rude gesture, with both hands, toward the clouds. “Fuck you, storm! Fuck you, Hastur and Michael!”

His celebration, however, was cut short when he heard someone shout his name. At first, he turned toward the chaser’s truck, thinking Noel or Lucky had come after him, but no, he realized after the second shout, it was Crowley.

On the side of the road and barely upright, Aziraphale didn’t look so good. Adam ran over, slipping in the wet grass, just in time to watch the angel pitch backwards and into Crowley’s arms. “What happened?” he asked, not sure what to do. Was he still not supposed to touch either of them? They looked normal again, not … supernatural, or whatever, but he wasn’t sure.

“It was a big miracle,” Crowley said, gritting his entirely human teeth. “Takes it out of you. Help me get him into the back seat, would you?” Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered open and Adam paused, one hand on the door. “You’re alright, angel. Nice work. I’ve got it from here.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Watch my coat.” Crowley snorted, and then he and Adam carefully stuffed Aziraphale into the back seat, the angel half-heartedly attempting to help as much as he could. As soon as he was recumbent, though, his eyes were closed, and Adam heard him snore gently. 

“He hardly ever sleeps,” Crowley said. Adam looked over and saw the demon didn’t exactly look chipper, either, although he was standing and moving under his own power. Come to think of it, Adam realized, he was feeling fairly exhausted himself. “And a miracle like that, probably be a few days before he’s back to rights. Biggest one I’ve seen him try since …” he thought for a second. “Maybe Germany? Nah, had to be another one since then. When was that one in London …” he shook his head. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. Needs a recharge, is my point.” He looked to Adam, and then grinned and clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Nice job, though. Feel alright?”

Adam yawned. “Don’t think I helped much.”

“‘Course you did. Gave it a little extra oomph.” The demon slumped against the car and looked in the direction of the truck. “You’d better get back to your crew.”

He glanced backwards over his shoulder toward the red truck, and turned back around. “Crowley, I’m not sure this is -” but he had to stop, because Crowley had actually put his hand over his mouth. “Mmnurf.”

“If I had to guess,” Crowley said, slowly, “Hastur’s not feeling any better than we are at the moment. We bought some time. Get back to your crew, and then when we’re hunkered down for the night we can talk, alright? Not now.”

The cars around them had started moving again, pulling away in the rain and heading back to home, or work, or wherever they were bound. Before long, it was almost just Crowley’s car and the storm chasing truck, and Adam realized if he didn’t get a move on someone might come looking for him. Besides, it was cold in the rain. He shivered, and wrapped his arms around himself.

“You think it’ll be alright for tonight?”

“Get back to the truck.” Crowley snapped his fingers once, and Adam narrowed his eyes, suspicious, even as he was walking away, backwards, his eyes still on his godfather. “That’ll take care of those humans you’re with, alright? No inconvenient questions.” He shooed Adam again, and then levered himself onto his feet once more, walking unsteadily around the car and leaning on it as he did. “Move it. The sooner you get to some place to stay, the sooner I can crash.” 

Adam nodded, and finally turned away, hands in his pockets, shoulders slumping. When he reached the truck, Noel and Rachael acted like he’d never even got out, just pulled off the shoulder and back toward the town. Lucky, on the other hand, was staring at him, pale under his mop of dark hair.

“What,” he asked slowly, “the fuck happened?”

Suddenly too tired to move, Adam leaned up against the window and let his eyes slide shut. “I’ll tell you later,” he said, and promptly dropped off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that WAS exciting, wasn't it? I hope so anyway, it was supposed to be.
> 
> As far as updates go, I am really gonna try to shoot for one on Wednesday this week, but work is trying to smother me to death with paperwork so alas I make no promises.


	20. Decreasing Intensity

They did not talk about it later. Or not later that night, anyway. That night, Adam somehow managed to stagger from the truck and into the motel room under his own power before collapsing face-first into bed without so much as a spare word to Lucky. It must have been alright, he figured, because when he woke the next morning, Lucky didn’t seem too upset.

At least, not with Adam. He  _ did _ seem upset about the serpent in the room.

Adam woke - when? He wondered. He felt as though he’d slept for an age - when Lucky started jerking his shoulder back and forth, sort of frantically. Bright sunlight was forcing its way in through the cheap motel curtains, and he had to blink a few times before his eyes adjusted. All the while, hearing Lucky whisper repeatedly, and with significant urgency, “ _ Adam there’s a snake in here _ .”

“Whazzat?” He sat up, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. He was still fully dressed in his mud-caked clothes from the day before, but at some point, someone had tucked the covers over him - as tired as he’d been, it might even have been himself, just before he’d fallen asleep. That only distracted him for a second, though, because Lucky had sort of a single, overarching concern.

“ _ Snake _ !” He gestured to the foot of Adam’s bed where, true to his word, a large red-bellied black snake was coiled up, its head and snout tucked into the mound of loops, clearly sleeping, its body nestled into the little dip it made in the comforter.

Adam yawned, waving a hand. “Oh, him. That’s alright, it’s just Crowley.”

It took a second for the panic to fade, but when it did, Lucky’s face made record time from abject fear to flat exasperation. “He can shape shift?”

“Yeah.” Adam yawned again. “Remember, Serpent of Eden?”

“I didn’t think that  _ still applied _ .” Lucky sighed, and threw his hands up. “I guess that explains why I couldn’t find Nanny this morning - just Aziraphale, but he’s still out.” Adam looked again toward the window, and this time his brain registered the angel, completely asleep, head back and snoring, in a chintz armchair that he felt absolutely certain hadn’t been in the room when they’d arrived last night. When had they come in? Adam didn’t even remember seeing them after everything yesterday, after Crowley had told him to get back into the truck.

He yawned, yet again. “Oh, yeah. After yesterday I think he’s gonna sleep for a while.”

Lucky looked at him. He sat on the bed, not breaking eye contact, and raised an eyebrow. “You wanna talk about yesterday?”

Adam groaned. “I just woke up. Can I have some tea or something first?”

“ _ Tea _ ?” Lucky boggled, and looked around the room. “Uh, well, not sure the Super Eight includes tea but let me look …”

There was tea, located in a little cabinet with a small coffee maker and some paper cups. There wasn’t a kettle, but the microwave worked well enough in a pinch, and after a few minutes Lucky brought a cup over to Adam with a store-brand teabag in it, steeping. Adam cradled the cup in his hands and breathed the smell of the weak tea in; it needed more time, but even the faint smell was a familiar comfort, a balm to his soul. 

Lucky considered where to sit, eyeing up Crowley’s coils for a minute or so before gingerly sitting down cross-legged between Adam and the serpent. “If that’s just a random snake I’m gonna be so mad at you.”

“It’s not. Promise.” Adam looked into his tea for a while, watching the water get darker as it steeped. “So uh, we stopped the tornado yesterday, I guess.” He shrugged. “I think. Pretty sure Aziraphale and Crowley did most of it, but I don’t wanna wake them up to ask.”

“No, don’t.” Lucky shook his head. “Man, you just jumped out of the truck  _ in the middle of a tornado _ , I dunno, we all thought we were gonna die, especially you, but then …”

Adam cocked his head. “Yeah?” He frowned, genuinely curious. “I mean, from my end it was basically … standing in the middle of a bloody great storm. Trying to do magic, which, you know, I can’t really do anymore. What was it like from your perspective?”

“What I said.” Lucky waved his arms emphatically. “We’re all sitting there in the car, and it’s like,  ‘Oh fuck here comes a tornado, guess we’re all gonna die now,’ but then all of a sudden you  _ jumped out _ .”

“Right, but after that,” Adam said, nodding and urging him on. 

He looked pensive. “I was … really scared. Like, thought I was gonna die, saw my life flash before my eyes, all that. And Rachael and Noel were freaking out too, but we couldn’t do anything, couldn’t go anywhere, and - and then I felt  _ okay _ .” He stared fixedly at the comforter for a minute, brow furrowed as he thought, idly picking at a loose thread. “Like … like someone was telling me everything was going to be okay. I mean, there wasn’t anyone  _ there _ , obviously, but it was like I could hear someone in my ear clear as day. But I didn’t hear anything.” He shook his head and looked back up. “It was real weird.”

Adam nodded. “So like … something telling you not to be afraid?”

“Ye -  _ oh _ .” Lucky’s eyes widened and then he twisted around quickly to look at Aziraphale, still fast asleep in the armchair. “It was him, wasn’t it?” He turned back to Adam. “He did something, didn’t he? That’s why he’s tired.”

“Yeah. He protected people.”

“Like, just us?” Lucky looked toward the window, although whatever lay outside was occluded by the curtains. “Or … more than that?”

“I think … well, I dunno.” Adam shrugged. “Did you look and see the news around here? How many people were hurt, that kind of thing?”

He held up a finger. “No, hang on, I can though.” Quickly, Lucky pulled out his phone and after a moment’s GPS searching to figure out what town they had been in, found a news article about the tornado. “Okay, here’s something. Want me to read it?” He watched Adam nod, and then licked his lips and started to read aloud.

“‘ _ Last night the town of Alderwood, Nebraska, was devastated by a large tornado which was spawned by a line of severe thunderstorms moving through the region. The tornado, which was estimated to be an EF-4, touched down to the west of the town of Alderwood at approximately 4:15pm. It followed an unusual path, initially moving southeast before eventually turning back across its own track and moving west and through the town.  _

_ ‘The tornado was on the ground for approximately 2 hours, and was seen to dissolve at approximately 6:15pm over the northwestern limits of the town of Alderwood. Although many buildings within the town were damaged, only minor injuries were reported. At the time of writing, all citizens are reportedly accounted for, with no loss of life reported. Government agencies are on the scene evaluating the extent of the property damage, but the current estimate is well over $1 million in damages  _ -’” He paused to swallow, and his eyes flicked back and forth as he read ahead a little. “It goes on to talk about damages and stuff but yeah. No one killed, only minor injuries. It even mentions a cow farm which didn’t lose a single cow.” His one eyebrow quirked upwards. Slowly, he looked toward Aziraphale. “Wow.”

Adam realized he was staring at the angel too. He looked unlike himself, bow tie undone and hanging around his neck, slumped in that chair fast asleep. Adam had  _ never _ seen him sleep, unlike Crowley, who sometimes slept just for the fun of it. He had done it, though.  _ It can’t happen _ , Adam had said, and Aziraphale had made sure it hadn’t. “Yeah,” he agreed, realizing his eyes were a little wetter than usual. “Wow.”

They both took a while to process that thought, turn it over and try to examine it, reconcile it with the snoring, fussily-dressed (if slightly rumpled) man-shaped being in the chintz armchair. “So what about you?” Lucky eventually asked, barely audible as the air conditioner kicked in. “You said you’d say.”

Adam nodded and sipped his tea. “Well,” he started slowly, “after I left the truck I … found the two of them. They were already doing something, I think, but I don’t know what. Maybe Aziraphale had already started.” He huffed out a breath, the steam from the tea dissipating for a moment. “Either way, he decided he could keep people from getting hurt. Crowley and I had to do something about the tornado.” He took another sip. 

“Crowley did something with the thermals, I think. Maybe he stabilized the atmosphere or something like that, just to make it harder for a tornado to stay on the ground. My job was to uh, well,  _ imagine _ the tornado wasn’t any good. Sort of.” He looked up thoughtfully. “He told me to believe as hard as I could that it was a shite tornado, basically, and I guess that … channeled my powers into helping it  _ be _ a shite tornado. Plus, I shouted at it.”

Lucky snorted. “With the shouting again, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Adam laughed. “I oughta be careful about shouting I guess. But yeah, they went all uh, supernatural with like, wings and stuff -”

“Right, right, like you do.”

“And I yelled at the tornado. And the whole time I just had this feeling like it was all gonna be okay. Like someone was telling me ‘ _ be not afraid _ ’.” He said it as if he was struggling to remember, although it was a lie: the memory of the entire event was as clear as it could be, down to the way the wet blades of grass had stuck to his face, the way the dust and rain felt in his eyes. “That must have been Aziraphale, sounds like what you felt.” He didn’t mention the feeling from the day before, with Joshua. That  _ hadn’t _ been Aziraphale, but, well, if Lucky had felt the same thing yesterday then it must have been him that time, mustn't it?

Lucky nodded. “Yeah. Must’ve been.” He looked back over to Aziraphale puffed a long breath out through his nose. “Wow. Who knew Brother Francis had it in him.”

“Crowley always said he was the more powerful one,” Adam volunteered after a thoughtful sip. “Hands-down, no contest. I asked like, more than once, because when someone that stopped time once tells you something like that it’s kind of hard to believe. And he is a Principality, so I guess it is pretty much his  _ thing _ to protect people.”

“True.” And then, Lucky added, “I have no idea what a Principality is.”

“Broadly speaking, they protect people. S’much as I know.”

“Makes sense.” He twiddled his thumbs and asked, “Okay, so then what? The tornado just went away?”

Adam ran his hand through his messy blonde curls. “Pretty much. Uh. It went away, and then Aziraphale passed out, and Crowley and I got him into the car -”

Lucky raised a hand. “But you didn’t see like, anyone or anything else weird, is what I’m asking.”

“Oh. Er, no.” He shook his head. “No other demons or angels. Just the three of us. Why, did you?”

Lucky looked horrified. “No. No, trust me, I would have said something sooner than this. Uh, and probably wouldn’t have let any of you guys sleep.” He sniffed. “Not that I’m sure I could have done anything about it - after you passed out, Crowley carried Aziraphale in and dumped him into that chair and passed out on the floor. Told me not to worry about it.” He broke into a crooked smile and shook his head. “As if that were a realistic suggestion.”

“Sorry.” Adam frowned. “You could have woken me earlier. Were you okay overnight?”

Lucky shrugged. “Kinda. I must have gone to sleep eventually, I guess, because he was still a human, last I remember.” He looked over his shoulder at the sleeping form of Crowley, coiled up into a tight mound of shiny black scales. “Oh!” He turned back around. “What did you do to Rachael and Noel? Once you got back into the truck, they just acted like nothing happened!”

“Nothing,” answered Adam quickly, surprised at how defensive he felt about that. It wasn’t as if Lucky had been accusing him. “Crowley did it. I don’t know if it’s permanent.” He winced. “That could be awkward, if it’s not.”

Lucky opened his mouth to respond, and had half a word out, when a drowsy hiss sounded behind him. He yelped and jumped away from Crowley, watching with alarm as the serpent slowly lifted his head and regarded Lucky with bleary consideration. “It isss,” Crowley said eventually, tongue flicking out. “Permanent. Sshould be, anyway.”

“Oh. That really is you, Nanny. You can talk like that?”

“Courssse I can. Sserpent of Eden, aren’t I? Had to talk Eve into that apple.” Sluggishly, he slithered out of his coil until the length of his entire body was draped across the foot of the bed - in this form, he was a solid ten feet long, although Adam was given to understand his true demonic serpent form was much, much larger - and writhed a little, almost as if he were stretching. “What time isss it?”

“Eleven,” Lucky answered. “I didn’t know what to do, I just let you guys sleep. Uh. Well, I did, until I came back and there was a snake on your bed, Adam.”

“Came back?” Crowley peered at Lucky. “Where’d you go?”

“Just to the lobby. I met Noel and Rachael for breakfast. They said you could sleep as long as you wanted,” he added, to Adam. “I think the plan is whenever you wake up we head toward town, see if we can help with the clean-up.”

“Oh, cool. Yeah, we should do that.” Adam winced. “I should, well - since it’s my fault and all -”

Lucky snapped his fingers under Adam’s nose, startling Adam into silence. “Hey! None of that, alright? It’s not your fault for existing, and it’s not your fault someone’s trying to kill you.”

Adam blinked. From the foot of the bed, Crowley murmured, “Hit him for me Lucky, will you? Don’t have handsss at the moment.” Obediently, Lucky did, landing a gentle but pointed slap on Adam’s shoulder. 

For a minute, Adam stared at his shoulder, and then he turned to the other two that were awake and said, hotly, “But I don’t have to be chasing tornadoes! That was stupid, I should have - we  _ knew _ they could manipulate the weather, and -”

“We knew they could manipulate  _ lightning _ ,” Lucky cut him off again. “That’s different. We didn’t expect them to be able to like,  _ steer a tornado _ .” He glanced to Crowley and said, a little anxiously. “We didn’t expect that, right?”

“Not to that extent,” Crowley confirmed. And then he hissed. “I’d like to get at Hasstur now, he’sss probably jusst as tired asss he isss.” He pointed his tail toward Aziraphale. “It’d be a good time to get him.”

“I’ll summon him then.” Adam jumped out of bed and to his feet. And then swayed, dangerously. He didn’t go down, but only because Lucky steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll - I think I can.”

“And then what?” Crowley asked, tongue flicking out. “You think he’ll jusst wait nicely by after you passss out, give you a chance to have a nap and then wake up for a fair fight?” He yawned, fully unhinged jaw and fangs and all. “Good luck with that. Ssummoning him might be in the cardsss eventually, but not today. None of usss are ready for that.”

With a gentle push from Lucky, Adam sunk back down onto the bed. He started at his socks for a minute. “But we should do it. Before this happens again. I know you - I know what you said, but we should do it.”

“Didn’t sssay we sshouldn’t. Not today, though.” Slowly, he lifted his head up off the bed and curved around to look at Aziraphale. “I need handsss,” he muttered, before slithering down off the bed. 

Lucky and Adam watched as the Serpent of Eden slithered into the cheap motel bathroom, and Lucky waited another beat before saying to Adam, softly, “You have to stop blaming yourself.”

They were quiet, just for a second, while Adam glared furiously at the floor. “I know.” He glared up at the taller boy. “I know I do,  _ logically _ I know, but put yourself in my position, alright?”

“No, I get it.” Lucky stood up and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “But the longer you feel sorry for yourself, the harder it’s gonna be for us to come up with a plan to stop playing defense.”

“We summon Hastur.” Adam snorted. He spread his arms out, helpless. “There’s your plan.”

“And then what?” Lucky put his head to one side. “You shout at him? That’s going to stop working eventually, man.” He shook his head. “No, dude we have to think of someth -” A weird, scraping sound came from the bathroom then, and Lucky stopped talking, instead spinning to face the still-open door, wide-eyed. 

Adam, on the other hand, half-laughed under his breath. “He’s transforming. You get used to it.”

“Does it … look weird?” Lucky asked, glancing back to Adam for the barest of milliseconds before looking back toward the half-closed bathroom door, just in case.

“Dunno. He never does it when anyone can see.”

Lucky nodded. “Probably looks really weird then.” 

“You know, the door’s not shut!” Crowley called from the bathroom, before stepping back into the room proper, dressed and human-shaped. “I heard everything. All your scheming. And it does look weird,” he added to Lucky, as he waved a hand toward the bathroom. “S’why I did it in there.”

Lucky blushed. “Sorry. Just … getting used to all of this.”

“You’re lucky I like you,” Crowley sighed. Then he fell quiet, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at Aziraphale. “6000 years, and I have no idea how to wake him up.”

Adam turned around to study Aziraphale, who was still fast asleep. “I’m assuming,” he said slowly, “that it’d be a bad idea to do it the normal way? Just, you know, shake his shoulder or something?”

“Dunno.” He stalked closer, bending over to study the angel over the tops of his glasses. “I’ve only seen him really properly  _ sleep  _ twice, in all the years I’ve been around, and both times he woke up before I had to do anything about it.*” He took a cautious step closer. “Might be alright to just do the usual way, but …” He made a series of thoughtful, worried noises that did not actually resemble words. “Well, I’m not always the easiest to wake up either. If you’re having a bad dream and you’re a human it’s one thing, but for us it can be … intense.”

[*  _ Or rather, before Crowley himself had woken up. _ ]

“And a defensive angel is a bad thing,” Lucky concluded. Crowley nodded, and stalked closer still, circling around to Aziraphale’s left and studying him from that angle. There was, Adam saw, a thin tendril of drool trickling from the angel’s mouth, and he resolved immediately to never, ever mention that to anyone. “Okay, well, uh, I’ll hide behind the bed, then.”

“He wouldn’t hurt you,” Adam assured him, although he wondered if he should do the same.

“Well no, not if he were awake.” Lucky had circled back behind the bed closest to the bathroom wall, slid into the space between the bed and the wall, and sunk down onto his knees, ready to duck down and hide at a moment’s notice. “But he’s not.”

Adam thought that over. “Is there room for me back there?”

Once both boys were safely tucked behind the bed and draped with a protective blanket (“It works for demons,” Crowley had said), Crowley approached Aziraphale again, this time while calling the angel’s name softly. As he got closer, he increased in volume a little, step-by-step, but Aziraphale remained resolutely asleep. Soon enough, Crowley was hovering over the angel, and speaking in his normal voice, hands propped on his hips. 

“Aziraphale? Aziraphale. Angel.” He sighed, and raised his voice. “Oi, angel! Aziraphale! I see you snoring, I know you’re alive.  _ Oi _ .” He hesitated and then, apparently deciding there was nothing for it, reached out, his hand stopping just shy of Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Angel?” Finally, cautiously, he prodded the front of Aziraphale’s coat very, very quickly, and jumped back. “Hey.”

Aziraphale stolidly failed to wake up. “Hm,” said Crowley.

They conferenced on other possible solutions. Adam suggested a harder prod, this time with a broom or something, just in case, but a quick search of the room revealed no such long-handled implements that might be of use. Lucky did find an ironing board, but considering it was difficult to wield from one end or the other, they ruled it out. In the process, however, he did trip over his own bag of things, and had an idea.

“What if we throw stuff at him?” Lucky suggested, as Adam and Crowley had just started to study the shower curtain for possible ways to pull it down. “Soft stuff. Pillows and balled-up socks and stuff.”

Crowley and Adam exchanged a look. Adam shrugged. “Beats property damage,” he said. 

“I guess so,” Crowley grumbled.

For the throwing, even Crowley thought increased range might be safer. Thus, he slunk into the space between the wall and the far bed with Lucky and Adam, hunched down on the end to be in closest position to move to Aziraphale when the angel woke up.

“Alright.” Lucky - elected to throwing duty based on his history of playing Little League baseball for one entire season - weighed the socks in his hand, and took a breath. “And no one’s going to tell him it was me, right?”

“Not a word,” Adam agreed. Crowley nodded.

Lucky shrugged. “O - kay.”

Although his Little League experience was six years prior, Lucky’s aim was true. The socks sailed in a graceful arc across the room, hit Aziraphale on the left side of his chest, and then bounced harmlessly into Aziraphale’s lap. Aziraphale, disappointingly, did not stir. Crowley groaned.

“Bit harder next time, I think,” Adam said, handing another sock missile over. “Maybe a proper baseball throw.”

“Like we used to toss pebbles at him,” Crowley added, shrugging when Adam whipped around to fix him with a surprised look. Lucky started to laugh. “We did.”

“I was five, I don’t think I was throwing very hard at that point.” Lucky squeezed the socks, considered the angle, and threw. This one was a harder throw, straight and direct, and this time the socks bonked off the angel’s left ear.

Aziraphale jumped. The three others ducked. A moment later, they heard a drowsy, “What on Earth … ?”

“Angel!” Crowley popped up from behind the bed first, arms outstretched. “You’re awake.” Adam and Lucky peeked up next, cautiously.

Aziraphale’s eyes were narrowed, and he was frowning. He held one pair of socks up, demonstrative, and asked, serious as the grave, “Crowley, did you throw socks at me?”

Crowley’s grin faltered. “Had to wake you up somehow.”

“A gentle shake on the shoulder would have sufficed.” He threw the socks back then, nailing Crowley in the chest. The demon barely managed to catch the bundle after it bounced off of him, but before it hit the ground. “Why would you feel compelled to throw things?”

“Wasn’t sure what you’d do.” Crowley set the socks on the bed then, and crossed the room to stand next to Aziraphale’s chair. “Didn’t want to be in range in case you er, woke up disoriented.”

“Ah. I see.” Aziraphale sagged then, and for the first time since Adam had met him, even during the entire Nahpocalypse debacle, the angel looked very tired, and very old. “Afraid I’m … a bit too wrung-out to manage much, dear boy.”

Crowley softened too, the hunch of his shoulders rounding to a sloping slouch, and his expression shifted to something concerned. “Yeah, you would be.”

“You did a great job though.” Adam startled a little when Lucky chimed in, unexpected in the moment. “Adam and I looked it up this morning: no one died. Only minor injuries.”

That, at least, got Aziraphale smiling. “Wonderful. I had hoped to save some of the infrastructure as well, but that was a bit much, I’m afraid.”

Adam climbed to his feet and shimmied out from behind the bed while Crowley reassured the angel. “S’fine. It’ll get rebuilt. I can … make sure the local council has plenty of money to take care of it.”

“That’s quite nice of you, dear.”

Crowley bristled a little as Adam padded closer, stopping next to the demon. Crowley hissed, “Maybe. But is it nice if they have money because the mayor’s been accepting bribes?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale admonished, before turning his attention to Adam. “How are you, Adam? I know what you did - you’re as much to thank as anyone.”

“I’m not,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I did what I could, but without you I couldn’t have ...” He trailed off, hovering awkwardly for a minute before he mumbled, “Er, could I -?”

Aziraphale opened his arms, finding them full of Antichrist in a blink. “Of course,” he said, and Adam squeezed back, as hard as he dared, as fragile as the angel looked right now. “There, there.”

“I don’t know what I would’ve done without you guys,” he mumbled into Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It’s quite alright, Adam.” When he pulled away, Aziraphale’s eyes were maybe a bit more shiny than usual, although he didn’t move to wipe them. Adam swallowed the lump in his throat, as well, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. 

“I don’t think I’m going to be okay with running defense anymore,” he said, quietly. Behind him, Crowley and Lucky were gathering up socks and other possessions, packing them away in preparation for departure. “I think we ought to do something.”

Aziraphale nodded. “I don’t disagree. But I’m afraid at the moment I’m … not going to be particularly helpful.” He turned and looked to Crowley, who had slipped back over, unheard. “Is this how you felt after you stopped time and all that, years ago?”

“A bit. Probably not a patch on what you’re feeling.” He looked worried. “You up to walking, do you think?”

He took Crowley’s offered hand as confirmation. “How dreadful.” A look of concentration settled on his face as Crowley helped him to his feet, and then immediately slipped an arm around his waist to steady him. “I’m fine, Crowley, really.” He smiled, but it was forced. “What’s the plan for today, then?”

“Rachael and Noel wanted us to meet up with them once we were both awake.” Lucky was standing awkwardly by the door, bag over his shoulder and hands in his pockets. “We’re gonna help clean up around town today, maybe a little tomorrow, before we leave.”

“And you’re going to go back to sleep as soon as you’re in the car,” Crowley added severely. Adam was inclined to agree. He slipped on his sneakers, scooped up his bag, and tried to ignore the way Crowley was half-carrying Aziraphale, although they were both doing their level best to make it look like he was perfectly capable of walking under his own power. 

Aziraphale sighed. “I’m afraid you’re not wrong. I’d like to help -”

“In my opinion, you did enough yesterday,” Lucky said, propping the door open as the other three trailed out. “Think you’re owed a day off, probably. At least one.”

“I daresay this will require more than one,” Aziraphale chuckled. “It was quite worth it, though.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, but based on his tone there was no malice in it. “You’re a ridiculously good angel, angel. Come on, car’s this way.” He paused, bracing Aziraphale upright against his own shoulder, and looked to Adam and Lucky. “We’ll be around - keep an eye on the car and call if you need me.”

“Will do.” Lucky waved as the other two staggered off, Crowley doing his best to look nonchalant while simultaneously supporting Aziraphale almost entirely, and then turned to start walking toward Noel’s truck, parked at the far end of the lot. “Rachael wants to talk to you.”

“Huh?” Adam was still watching them go, but when his brain caught up with what Lucky had said, he shook himself and hurried to catch up. “About what?”

“Crowley’s memory thing didn’t work. Or at least not all the way.” Adam’s stomach dropped, and it was all he could do not to stumble as he went, keeping pace with Lucky’s long stride. “I don’t think she knows exactly what happened yesterday, but she knows … something happened. And she wants to talk.”

Adam nodded, feeling curiously as if he might start to float away. Or maybe he just wished he would. “Oh. Well. I guess -”

They had reached the truck, and Lucky dropped the back gate down before throwing his bag into the bed. “I don’t think she remembers enough to want to kick you out, if that’s what you’re worried about.” It had been. Lucky used Adam’s sudden inability to speak to slip the bag off Adam’s shoulder and slide it into the truck as well. “But she knows something’s weird. She asked about you this morning.” He shut the gate of the truck with a slam, and turned to Adam. With a shrug, he said, “You need help thinking of something to tell her?”

Adam blinked a few times. “What? Um. I mean, if she’s going to make me leave, then -”

“She won’t,” the other boy said firmly. “And if she does, then I’m going with you and we’re doing something about this before you go back to England.”

A variety of questions thronged to the front of Adam’s brain, all clamoring for attention at once. Questions about logistics, about what was so wrong with going back to England, about how he’d done what he’d done yesterday, and Watchers and all sorts of other questions, but the one that forced its way to the forefront was: “Why?”

Lucky made a noise. It wasn’t exactly speech, but somehow it conveyed the impression of ‘Look!’ Or perhaps it was the way he spread his arms wide, and looked all around them. Their immediate surroundings had been spared but in the distance the pale timbers of ruined buildings were just visible. People were milling all around, trucks driving back and forth with possessions loaded in their beds. “Because!” Lucky concluded. “Because, you know what, fuck this, actually!” 

He stalked a few paces away, arms still outstretched, and then turned around back to Adam. “Because you’re just trying to live your life, which like, thank  _ God _ , or I guess whoever, if God’s not around, you are! And because - because the world is crazy enough!” He groaned, and let his arms fall to his sides. “Because the world’s crazy enough without supernatural horseshit messing around with it, and I guess if  _ I’m _ the human who’s in a position to do something about it, then I’m gonna!”

He gestured demonstratively. “If these two characters - Michael and Hastur, right?” Adam nodded, stunned. “If they’re the ones trying to re-start the Apocalypse, then you know what? I, a human, am not okay with that! And I’m in the unique position to know that it’s not all metaphors or whatever: it’s real! Literal! And I’m  _ super _ not okay with that! So fuck it!” He gestured to Adam with both hands, and then to himself. “You want it all to stop, I certainly want it all to fucking stop, so let’s stop it!” He scowled. “And if you don’t want to, too bad, because I’m gonna make you, because I don’t wanna die.”

_ Weaponized selfishness _ , Adam thought. Crowley had talked about it before. But in this case, he wondered if it really counted as selfish if in the process, Lucky was saving the entire world, too. “I want to,” he said, thickly. “I’m gonna. You don’t have - I’m gonna do it no matter what.”

“Well, good.” This said like they had been arguing, and maybe they had? Adam hadn’t thought so, but then again, he was still feeling fairly fuzzy from the day before. Lucky straightened up. “Good. So I’ll help you. It’s settled.”

“Okay,” said Adam, deciding not to argue right at this moment.

They were quiet together, Lucky looking out toward the part of town that the majority of the clean-up effort was focused on, and then he asked, “How do you kill an angel?”

Adam coughed. “Hellfire,” he managed, when he recovered. “Which I can’t do,” he added, before Lucky could ask.

“Alright, well, we’ll work on it. Demons are easy enough, we just need holy water for them, right?”

“Right.” He glanced over his shoulder nervously, confirming that the 4Runner was not far away. “But maybe we don’t … don’t tell Crowley and Aziraphale about that. And keep it away from Crowley.”

“Yeah. We can work on it.” He took a breath in, and when he breathed out in a long, harsh sigh, it was like he’d deflated. He’d been working himself up to that, Adam realized. He’d been scared, and determined, and was ready to argue his case to Adam. In reality, though, he’d caught Adam so much by surprise that he couldn’t have formulated an argument if he’d wanted to. Which, Adam considered, he hadn't …  _ really _ wanted to. He probably should have, probably should have argued that this was too dangerous, but then, the Them had stood beside him against the four horsepersons, hadn’t they? In comparison, this seemed almost mild.

“We should get moving,” Adam said gently, while Lucky stared blankly at the town.

The other boy nodded. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. “Yeah. I’ll text Rachael and see where they’re at.”

Rachael and Noel, ultimately, were not far from the hotel. In fact, they were working with another group of storm chasers - the boys recognized Beth from the day before - to go through the rubble of what looked like a community building for anything salvageable. As they approached, gingerly picking their way through the remnants, Noel heard them and looked up, his face breaking into a relieved smile as soon as he saw them. “There you guys are. Was worried you’d had enough and turned tail.”

Adam returned the smile and shook his head. “Nah. Just tired from yesterday.” Behind Noel, he noticed Rachael look up too. She did not smile, instead studying him closely, looking him over from head to toe, although for what Adam wasn’t sure. He looked away, and made a show of looking around, and tried to resist the urge to text Crowley about supernatural activity. “So what’re we looking for?”

“Anything useful!” Beth called then, using her boot to kick a sheet of roofing out of the way. “Filing cabinets, personal belongings, whatever you can get. We started a pile out by the street.”

Lucky replied, “Got it,” and was off across the collapsed structure with his eyes on the ground. Adam watched him go for a minute, and then looked away. Carefully, not saying anything, he headed in the opposite direction, deliberate as he forged a path, his eyes downcast and searching the ground for anything that might be important. There were half-crushed desks, splintered chairs, and a bathroom that had been utterly destroyed, with pipes thrust up through the wreckage like stalks searching for the light. Scattered bits of broken porcelain crunched beneath his feet while he hurried over that part, partially because he couldn’t imagine there was anything of interest there, and partially because he could hear boots coming up behind him.

The former building had bordered a road, and Adam beat a path toward that. There was a short filing cabinet there, maybe it wouldn’t be too heavy for him to lift, and he could take it back to the main pile.

“Adam.”

Maybe if he pretended he hadn’t heard -

“ _ Adam _ .” He stopped, just three feet short of the cabinet. What he had thought was another, taller cabinet was revealed to be, as he got closer, a portion of mostly-collapsed wall. He wondered if he could hide behind it. “Adam? Can we talk?” He looked over his shoulder to see Rachael, one foot up on a fallen beam. He expected her to look angry, or upset, but she just looked confused. He met her eyes, and she glanced away, checking on Noel and Beth and the rest, before looking back toward him. “Privately, if you don’t mind?”

He looked around the pile of rubble. “Where?”

They ended up behind the patch of still-standing wall. As soon as they were out of sight of the others, Rachael stepped closer to him, hands on her hips, and fixed him with a stern glare. “What the hell happened yesterday?”

_ Maybe if I play dumb _ , he thought, desperately. He smiled bashfully, a sort of ‘aw shucks’ smile that always seemed to work on his teachers, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I dunno. It’s all kind of fuzzy -”

She crossed her arms. “Is the part where you ran  _ into a tornado _ fuzzy?”

Adam’s jaw dropped open. He looked around quickly, looking for Crowley -  _ Crowley _ , seriously? - and when the only car in shouting range proved to be a brown sedan with a middle-aged man sitting in it, reading, he sagged. “You remembered that?”

“ _ Yeah _ .” Her eyes darted back toward the rest of the group. “And Noel has  _ no recollection of it at all _ . Care to explain?”

“I -” he stammered for a minute. “I can’t, really,” he concluded. “I’m sorry. But I couldn’t just sit there while all that terrible stuff happened. I couldn’t just - just  _ sit there _ while all those people got hurt. I had to do something,” he finished, very quietly, and feeling very small.

Rachael boggled. “Like what?” she hissed. “Years, I’ve been doing this Adam, and sometimes shit happens, sometimes you have to sit back and pray, you don’t  _ run out _ -”

“I uh -” a memory surfaced, and he nearly brightened. “The tourists! That were following us, remember?”

She looked dubious. “Yes.”

“I told them to get in the drainage ditch by that field,” Adam said quickly, formulating the lie even as he spoke. “We laid in it together, with some of the other people, and waited for the tornado to pass over us.” He didn’t sigh, because she still looked awfully suspicious, but he did shrug. “But I guess it fell apart before it got there. A real miracle,” he added, with a mental,  _ Thank you, Aziraphale _ .

Rachael didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was a slow, deliberate response. “It was a real miracle. No one was killed, or even seriously hurt, did you know?”

He nodded. “Lucky read me the article this morning.”

“Miraculous.” She watched him for a minute, but Adam kept his face carefully arranged into the perfect expression of relief, remorse, and fatigue. Eventually, she shook her head. “Noel doesn’t remember any of it. He remembers the tornado coming, and you getting back into the car, but  _ he claims _ he knew we’d be fine the entire time. Doesn’t remember the part where you ran out.” Something passed over her face, a look of confusion. “And you know, I was … terrified. But at the same time, it was so strange, just this feeling of peace.” She blinked. “People say they feel like that just before they die, sometimes.”

Adam shrugged again. “Or maybe just … I dunno, maybe you just picked up on somethin’.” He shuffled his feet and stuffed his hands into his jean pockets. “I’m sorry I ran out, but I just couldn’t leave everyone. And, well, I kind of thought we were all goners anyway, honestly.”

“Me too, for a minute.” She studied him. “Why doesn’t Noel remember anything?”

Adam shook his head, forcing his eyes to go wide, like he was shocked she’d asked. “I dunno. Shock, maybe. Does funny things to people, I’ve heard.”

Rachael didn’t look convinced. “Maybe. How’s Lucky?”

“Shook up, but fine.” He forced a laugh. “He yelled at me already today, too.” No need to specify what about, of course, Adam knew. Best left unsaid. 

“Good.” She set her jaw and tucked her own hands into her pockets. “I have more than half a mind to put you back on a plane and send you home, you know.” His blood ran cold. “I won’t,” she said, because it must have shown on his face, “yet. But I swear to God, Adam, you have to  _ promise me _ that you will not do  _ anything else _ that is that  _ catastrophically stupid _ , or you’re done with this.” She bit her lip. “If Noel remembered any of it, I would send you home now. I would. But -”

“I won’t,” said Adam, as quickly as he could. “I promise. I won’t do anything else, I’ll stick right with you the entire time. Promise.”

She took her time to study him. At length, she nodded. “Okay.” She heaved a sigh. “Lord knows we’ve all done stupid shit when we were scared. But  _ don’t do it again _ .”

“I won’t,” he repeated. “Rachael, I’m so sorry, I really am, but I didn’t know what to do. I was scared.” The last sentence was small, quiet, and completely honest. He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“All’s well that ends well, I guess.” She took a few deep breaths, and then leaned backwards, the better to see around the wall chunk. “We should get back to the others. Come on.” She took a few steps toward the road, Adam tagging along on her heels, and kept talking. “So with yesterday being what it was, Noel and I were thinking we might … take a break, for a few days. Might be good for all of us.”

A few days away from storms sounded rather attractive at that point, and Adam found himself nodding eagerly. “Yeah, okay. It has been kind of intense.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she said with a snort. “How would your compatriot feel about that, do you think?”

“Well.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to speak for him.”

“I’ll ask him later, if it makes you feel better. Come here, help me with this cabinet.” She tipped the filing cabinet he’d seen earlier backwards, and Adam immediately squatted down to pick up the bottom end of it. “Just kind of seeing what he might think.” She smiled a little. “‘Cause actually, it’s kind of non-negotiable, and there’s no storms coming behind yesterday’s line for now. Just was thinking of how I might bring that up.”

“Oh. Yeah, he’ll be okay with it, I think.” He stepped carefully over a ceiling beam. “It’s been intense, yeah.”

“We’re not far from Rocky Mountain National Park,” she went on, looking back over her shoulder as she went to ensure she wouldn’t trip. “Sound appealing?”

Adam pictured it: a few days in the mountains, quiet, out of the way, blue skies and no storms, and plenty of time to  _ think _ . To think, and to plan, and for Aziraphale to rest up before they did … whatever. He started to smile. “Yeah. Yeah, sounds perfect, actually.”

“Good.” They reached the pile where the rest of the salvaged items had been gathered, and Adam set his end down first, carefully, on the remaining sidewalk. “Just take a couple days to see the sights and take it easy, rest up,” she said, patting the top of the cabinet like it was an old family pet, and just that alone made Adam smile. “I think it’ll do us all a world of good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I did it! New chapter mid-week aw yeah. Anyway, we're having another cooling-off period while everyone gets re-organized. Right? Sure. Sure that's totally what's happening.


	21. The Mercury is Rising, Boys

The next morning, Rachael’s laptop was stowed somewhere out of sight. Noel wasn’t checking directions with her every few minutes. In the back, Adam and Lucky were free to look out of the windows at the scenery, and not the sky. In spite of the prior events, or perhaps partially because of them, the drive to the park was downright leisurely. Adam was still tired, and spent the majority of the drive slumped against the window, watching the scenery shift from the broad, flat grasslands that had grown so familiar over the past almost two weeks, to rolling hills, and then, suddenly to towering crags of mountains that soared into the blue sky, their snowy caps harassed by a light, wispy cloud cover. It was soothing, and even with the threat of Michael and Hastur in the back of his mind, he found he was able to relax, just a little.

The blue sky didn’t hurt, either. Blue skies meant no storms. With the clear sky above, breathing felt a little easier. 

Noel told them about the park as they drove in. He wasn’t as familiar with this part of the country as he was with the ‘Big Sky’ region - Montana and Wyoming - but he knew enough history and geography to keep the trip interesting. They took their time, stopped twice on the way, and at last, pulled into one of the little gravel car parks just off the road around noon. They had stopped not long before to pick up sandwiches, and Adam had been riding with them carefully in his lap, wide-eyed as Noel guided the truck through the peaks and valleys until they reached their destination.

“Cool, huh?” asked Lucky, after they’d gotten out. He took one of the bags of food from Adam and stuck his other hand in his pocket. “Amazing mountains.”

“Really cool,” Adam confirmed, voice a little weak with awe. He crunched through the gravel in Lucky’s wake, still trying to look everywhere at once. He’d been to the mountains before in Spain, on a family trip, but there was something about the brutal size of the Rockies that stood apart.   


There were picnic tables just at the edge of the gravel, and just beyond that, down a gently sloping hill, there was a small lake, fed by a river full of rapids. This far above, the sounds of the river were only quiet: a gentle background gurgle. That, combined with the sounds of a breeze rustling through the pines helped Adam unwind even more, a knot in his shoulders giving out, and he set the sandwich bag down with a sigh before flopping onto his seat on the bench.

“Relaxing, huh?” Rachael had been watching him carefully, but he must have reassured her with his behavior today, somehow - probably, he thought, the lower likelihood that he might be killed had led to him being a little more laid-back. “It’s nice, the fresh air. Good call, Noel.”

“Never found a problem some time in the mountains couldn’t fix.” Noel groaned and sat for a minute, next to Adam and across from Lucky, the better to appreciate the view of the lake below. “I figured we’d take a couple of days. I think we all need some time to decompress.”

Lucky was distributing the sandwiches from his bag. “Yeah,” he agreed, as he passed Adam’s sandwich and accepted his own in return. “Yeah it’s kind of been … intense.”

“And out here, nothing but blue skies and nature. Either of you enjoy hiking?” He looked to the boys appreciatively. “Plenty of it to do, around here.”

The two students looked at each other across the table, Lucky obviously somewhat excited, and Adam more neutral. He turned away from Lucky, back to Noel, and shrugged. “I never really thought about it, but I’d like to walk around and see more,” he said. “It’s a really cool place.”

“Sure is.” 

They ate without talking for a while, surrounded by the sounds of the park and the lake below. After the sandwiches were all but gone, Rachael broke the silence. She was staring off into some middle distance, her chin in her left hand while her right rested on the table, her fingers tapping in an indistinct staccato on the old wood. 

“You know, much as I’d like to hike out with you guys, I dunno that I have the energy.” She shook her head. “Like you said, Lucky, it’s been intense, the past few days, and I could use a break.” She appeared to make up her mind, nodding and then closing her eyes, the better to stretch her arms up above her head. “Let’s see if we can find a hotel near a spa, Noel.” Noel snorted. “I’m serious. Could go for a massage. Maybe a manicure.”

“Fancy,” Noel teased as he balled up the leftover paper sandwich wrappers and started gathering them up. “Honestly, I might join you. For a day off, that is, not the massage and then manicure.” He looked reflectively at his hands, broad and calloused and almost certainly never before subjected to any kind of pampering. “Don’t think I’m the manicure type.”

They shared a laugh over that, and then Rachael went on, “Definitely could go for a massage, though. My neck’s stiff as all get-out - I think it’s all the computer work. And ah, maybe a little tension from the past couple of days.” She sighed.

Lucky and Adam nodded in sympathy, while Noel sighed. “Yeah,” the older man agreed. “Probably a little tense. Plus you been up late the past few nights, too, looking at that data from the other day.” He leaned his elbows forward onto the picnic table. “Was it alright data?”

Something about Rachael’s posture changed. She blinked at Noel, and then bit her lip and folded her hands on the table in front of her. “In terms of collection quality -” she looked at the students and managed a small smile, “- it was more than alright. Perfect data in terms of the method of collection.” Her smile fell away. “But in terms of what the data  _ says,  _ that’s the … the rub, as Shakespeare might say.”

“How so?” Noel asked, brow furrowed. Lucky and Adam looked to her too, attentive.  _ Very _ attentive, in Adam’s case. The lightning from that day had been targeted toward him, clearly. It had been steered and deliberate, and he hadn’t thought it would look different on data recordings, but … 

“It’s very weird,” Rachael said, still frowning. Slowly, she turned her attention around the table, and settled on Adam. “Normally, in the area surrounding the strike, right, you get multiple negative charges, multiple surface-to-sky possibilities. But this lightning from the other day didn’t behave like that at all. There was  _ one _ possibility of strike location, and it was invariably where the lightning struck. I mean, we only got data off of a few strikes, compared to all the ones we saw, but that held true in all of the recorded strikes.” Her brow furrowed, she frowned, and Adam looked intently not at her, but at the pine tree just over her left shoulder. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”

Noel, on the other hand, just looked puzzled. “Was something wrong with the instruments?”

“I had just calibrated them that morning, there shouldn’t have been anything off.”

“Could have been jostled around in the back of the truck,” Noel suggested. Adam nodded, still staring fixedly at the tree, but Rachael didn’t look away from him. “I mean, it’s interesting for sure, but until we see something else like it I wouldn’t call it conclusive. Next time we hit the road we’ll target a high-lightning system maybe, and see if we can’t get a few more measurements.”

Rachael nodded and said, “I just thought it was weird, that being the storm where you almost got hit, Adam.”

Adam opened his mouth - to say what? What could he say? - but Lucky jumped to his rescue, ihis tone deceptively placid. “Well, I mean, lightning strikes on people are pretty uncommon, right? I wonder if the storm being unusual made a strike more likely.”

“There’s a thought,” said Noel, and Rachael turned her attention to the other boy instead. Adam could have sagged in relief, if it wouldn’t have looked so suspicious. “Could have been random chance, too. I mean, it happens - remember … was it last year or the year before when Timmer’s car got nailed? Killed the whole engine. I think Beth had to pull him out of a ditch so the tow could take him back to town.” He chuckled. “‘Course, matter of time with him. He’s always in the middle of something crazy.”

Rachael sighed. “Yeah. Some people are like that, I guess.” Another look toward Adam, but when he continued to study the tree behind her she evidently gave up and turned around on the bench to look at the lake below. “Anyway, I think I’ll go through that again tomorrow, maybe. Mostly going to see if I can find a spa, though.”

Adam nodded before finally tearing his attention away from the tree, and looking over to Lucky. Slowly, and only after the other boy nodded, he said, “Yeah, I think we might come out here and hike around a little. See the sights.”

Rachael raised an eyebrow, but said only, “Nice. Sounds like a good idea.”

With a quick glance behind them, Adam confirmed that the 4Runner was in the car park, half-concealed behind a few bristly evergreen trees. “Here,” he said, and he started to gather up the garbage leftover from lunch. “I’m gonna just go wash my hands. I’ll take the trash.” Lucky watched him curiously, his eyes flickering toward the car, and Adam risked a small, barely-there nod before turning and walking away across the soft mat of old fallen pine needles. He  _ did  _ stop to throw the trash away, and headed for the restroom in case anyone was watching but, once hidden behind the 4Runner, confirmed that they were not, and ducked back around to the driver’s side window.

“Hey, guys.” Crowley had rolled the window down as soon as Adam had started approaching. He was reclined in the driver’s seat, feet up on the dashboard*. Aziraphale was … well, his eyes were open, but it looked to be a near thing. He didn’t look over when Adam arrived. “How’s it going?”

[*  _ Which Adam had never, ever seen him do in the Bentley, and suspected was some kind of passive-aggressive gesture toward the SUV, knowing Crowley _ .]

“S’going.” Crowley yawned. “How about you lot? Enjoying your tornado-free day?”

Adam sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, actually.” He frowned. “So you know how I told you your memory thing didn’t work on Rachael?”

“It sort of did, I thought.” Crowley frowned. “You want me to do it again? Probably could manage it today.”

“No, I don’t. That’s not what I meant.” He shook his head. “But I think she suspects something. Well … okay, I know she suspects something with the tornado, but with the lightning now, too. Remember that time I almost got hit?” This time it was Aziraphale who hummed a quiet noise of agreement, before he let his head fall back against the seat and closed his eyes. “Apparently the data she collected on the lightning from that day was weird.”

“Not surprising,” Crowley murmured. He stared out of the windshield for a minute, thoughtful. “Like what?”

Adam leaned his arms onto the open window and let his chin rest on them. “Like it was targeted,” he said, miserably. “There wasn’t the same level of usual entropy or whatever. Apparently it was noticeable on the instruments.”

Crowley frowned. “Guess it makes sense. Yeah, I suppose it would do then.” He sighed. “What’s she want to do about it?”

“Nothing, right now, I don’t think. She wants to get more data, but we’re going to hang out here for a couple days, it sounds like. Everyone’s kind of ready for a break.”

Aziraphale smirked, eyes still closed. “Hear, hear.”

Adam went on, “But I think when we start up again, they’re going to be looking for more lightning-type storms than tornadoes. Maybe. I dunno.”

Crowley nodded. “That’ll be Hastur, then. He’s fond of lightning. Although - does Michael do much with lightning, angel?”

“I suppose she can.” Adam frowned. Aziraphale looked  _ better _ today, certainly, but there wasn’t any of the angel’s usual ebullience, and his posture was less uptight and more barely-holding-it-together. “I’ve always known her to be the more -” he yawned, weakly bringing an arm up to cover his mouth, “- so sorry, dear boy. The more direct-action type.”

“When in doubt, toss ‘em out,” Crowley muttered darkly. Adam chose not to respond to that. “Right. Well, either way we’ve got to do something about Hastur, and I think today or tomorrow’ll be the best chance we’ve got.”

“Not today.” Aziraphale shook his head. “Maybe tomorrow. In the event that you need … need assistance, or divine intervention, I may be able to contribute by tomorrow.”

Crowley looked doubtful but said, “Alright. Tomorrow. But we could do it tonight, without you, if I can just figure a way to -”

“Tomorrow.” Aziraphale’s tone brooked no argument. He even cracked his eyes open to glare sidelong at his partner. “I won’t have you doing anything foolish.”

Adam shrugged. “Whatever you think. What should I do, though? Or we, I guess.”

Crowley drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Been thinking about that.”

“No holy water,” Aziraphale said quickly, still glaring. “I won’t have you putting yourself in danger.”

“Nah.” Crowley waved a hand. “Wasn’t thinking about  _ that _ . Was more thinking about … well, you, Adam.” He raised an eyebrow. “If you’re in agreement, that is.”

Adam nodded eagerly. “Yeah, okay. With what?”

“So antichrist or not,” Crowley explained, “humans have … power over demons. Part of the curse of being a demon, right? We’re the lowest of the low, cast down and at the mercy of all the creatures of the Earth.” He shrugged when Aziraphale opened his mouth to refute him. “Don’t, angel, it’s the way things are. Anyway, so humans figured out summoning and binding fairly early.”

“Yeah, I figured we’d summon him,” Adam said. 

“Right, and I think that makes the most sense.” Crowley bit his lip, thoughtful and anxious all at once. “The issue is what we do next, but I think … well, that’s where the being human bit comes in. You can bind him, summon him, or banish him, if you know what to do.”

He considered that, watching Crowley as he did. “Can I,” he asked after a while, slow and thoughtful, “banish him to Hell? Permanently?”

“At least as long as you’re alive,” Crowley confirmed. “Not sure about permanently. But yes, you can banish him to Hell indefinitely.”

“Then we do that,” Adam replied, his mouth setting into a determined line. “Do you know how?”

Crowley winced. “Oh, yes. And before you say anything,” he said to Aziraphale, turning his head to look at the angel, “it’s a demon-specific kind of thing. All those books we went after in the fourteenth century, remember? Had things about this in ‘em. Banishments, bindings, all that shite. If you know what you’re doing, and you know the demon’s true name, you can do whatever you’d like, and if you know their true name, it’s  _ specific _ . No risk of collateral damage.” Crowley nudged Aziraphale. “Alright?”

Aziraphale harrumphed. “Alright. I suppose. It still sounds dangerous, though.” He and Crowley looked at one another then, and Adam had the sense that there was something unspoken passing between them. Or, rather, knew there was something unspoken passing between them, because he knew the two of them, and knew that look. He didn’t ask. “Be careful.”

“I will! You’ll be there!” Crowley spread his hands, palms up. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be alright.” He turned back to look at Adam, scanning the car park before saying, in a low voice, “Plan for tomorrow night, then. We can go over the specifics more tonight in the hotel, yeah? I’ll handle the circle and the written bits, but you’re going to have to do the brunt of the work.”

“Deal. Of course.” Adam nodded. “Whatever I have to do to … to get this finished.” He breathed out and then turned to look back at the other three. They still hadn’t noticed he’d gone, and had stood up from the table to get a better look at the lake. “I ought to get back soon or they’ll think I’ve snuck off again. Rachael’s kind of watching me.” He grimaced. “She told me yesterday that if I do anything stupid again she’ll send me home.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Honestly? Can’t say I blame her.” He raised a finger when Adam opened his mouth. “From her side, anyway, don’t argue with me, I know what you’re doing and why. You’re  _ sure _ you don’t want me to do it again? Just sort of finish the job?”

“ _ No _ ,” Adam grumbled. “I don’t like that you did it in the first place,” he went on, over Crowley’s sigh of frustration. “You can’t just go messin’ about with people’s memories, I don’t care why.”

“In some cases,” Aziraphale said tiredly, “it’s better done. Can you imagine what would have happened after the tornado if he hadn’t?” He fixed the boy with a brief, stern look, and then closed his eyes. “But in regards to  _ finishing the job _ , I think you’re right, Adam. Perhaps she remembered for a reason.”

“And we’re sure she’s not weird?” Crowley asked, the gesture he made with his hand indicating ‘weird’ meaning like himself and Aziraphale. “We’re  _ sure _ ?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “As far as I’ve been able to tell.”

“Well then why would she remember, angel, it should have wor -”

“It’s ineffable.”

Crowley stared at him for a long second, before a short little hiss slipped out of him. “Go back to sssleep.” He turned to Adam and shook his head ruefully. “And you get back to whatever you were doing. We’ll talk more tonight. Enjoy the park, today.”

“Okay.” Adam took a few steps backwards, and then turned to walk toward the restroom, hearing the whirr of the electric window rolling up fade out behind him. His head was full of all kinds of thoughts as he walked, hands in his pockets and shoulders slouched. He’d never summoned a demon before. Well, not intentionally. And he’d never met Hastur, who sounded like a real treat. Really, he hadn’t even done anything particularly occult since he was eleven. But Crowley would be there, he told himself. Crowley and Aziraphale, so surely things couldn’t go too pear-shaped.

Partially because he was so lost in his thoughts, and partially because the brown sedan was completely unassuming, Adam didn’t notice anything unusual about the only other car parked in the lot as he passed it. He certainly didn’t notice that it was the same brown sedan from the day before, with the  _ same  _ dark-skinned man from the day before, although he was, by the look of it, reading a different book. Adam didn’t notice that the man watched him as he walked in front of the car on his way to the restroom.

And because his back was turned, he didn’t notice the way the man’s expression flickered quickly, his dark eyes going wide for a tenth of a second, or the way his mouth twitched and he nodded curtly, apparently to himself. “Ah,” the man murmured, and he pulled a pencil from the band of his hat, licked the tip once to soften the lead, and made a neat annotation in a notebook he had in his lap.

-

The nearest civilization lay, as the crow might fly, about 20 miles to the north. It was a little town, where nothing very exciting ever happened*. Certainly, nothing as exciting as two people appearing in an IHOP parking lot out of thin air, and yet, in spite of all sense, there they were, there just a second after they hadn’t been, standing by the fence around the dumpsters. Andi, a server at the restaurant who was currently sitting outside on the curb having a quiet break from the lunch rush, blinked.

[*  _ Except that one time seven or eight years ago when animals had briefly overrun the town, and grass and trees started growing up through the roads. It had all gone away the next day though - the local government blamed weather balloons. People still talked about it. _ ]

She should scream. She should run, probably. After all, one of the people didn’t look particularly friendly and ... did he have a  _ frog _ on his head? She grimaced. Disgusting. 

She should definitely not carefully rise from her seat on the curb, tuck her phone into her pocket, and creep closer to the dumpsters, hoping the privacy fencing around them would conceal her.

“- shouldn’t have expected better,” the woman was saying, when Andi got within hearing range. Once close enough, she ducked behind the dumpster as well, just for good measure, and calmed her breathing as much as she could, intent on listening.

“Fuck off,” said the man with the frog on his head. He hadn’t looked well, she’d noticed as she’d gotten closer. He was pale, his eyes were sunken, and frankly he could do with a long shower with plenty of soap. And he sounded exhausted. “Like you could have done better.”

“I’m sure I could have,” the woman answered, primly. “And I will. Consider yourself relieved of your initial duty.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” the man snapped back. There was a snap of a lighter, followed by the smell of cigarette smoke. Andi wrinkled her nose. “Anyway, I’d like to see you try. As long as he’s got those two idiots with him you’ll never get close.”

“Which is why I have a plan to deal with those two idiots.” She sniffed. “The demon will need to be dealt with first; Aziraphale is significantly weakened at the moment, he won’t present much of a problem on his own.”

Andi gaped.  _ Demon _ ? Made sense, she thought, as the smell from the wafting smoke from the cigarette - not just cigarette smoke, but sulfur and rot - nearly gagged her. Who else would have black eyes and a frog on their head?

_ Demons _ , she thought, and then she crossed herself quickly. Just in case.

“What are you going to do? You know they both have … unique abilities.”

“Leave that to me. In any case I don’t think I’ll be able to kill him.” She sounded regretful about it. “Not easily, or in a way that wouldn’t draw attention, anyway. But if I discorporate him …” she trailed off. Discorporate? Andi made a face. Maybe they weren’t demons. Maybe they were just aliens or something.

The man must have been the one smoking, because Andi heard him breathe out, followed by another nose-full of the rancid-smelling smoke. “He’ll return to Hell.” He chuckled. “I see.”

“I’m sure for someone of his repute, a welcoming committee wouldn’t be out of the question.”

“All around the edge of the Pit,” the man replied, almost dreamily. “Certainly not. I’d love to welcome him home  _ personally _ .”

The woman made a satisfied little humming sound. “Very well. Then we have an understanding?”

“I believe we do.” He chuckled again. “I don’t even mind not getting a crack at the angel. I haven’t seen Crawly in such a while. It’ll be nice to  _ catch up _ .”

“I thought you’d like that.”

“Aw. Looking out for me, Wank-wings?” Andi blinked.  _ What _ ?

“Perish the thought. I just decided since you were performing so abysmally I would offer an option that plays more to your … strengths.” She sounded disgusted. “And I hate that name, you disgusting bastard.”

“I know.” Andi heard him crunch out the cigarette on the asphalt, and winced when the terrible smell mixed with that of melting pavement.  _ Demons _ , she thought. “Handle it, Wank-wings. I’ll be waiting in the Pit.”

The woman - Wank-wings, although Andi now was fiercely curious about what her actual name was - huffed, but didn’t respond otherwise. She waited to hear more, anything else, but a moment later, there was the sound of bird’s wings -  _ huge _ bird’s wings, so big that Andi looked up fearfully, in the event that maybe these two had summoned some kind of prehistoric creature to eat her - flapping, before quickly going silent. Somehow, she knew that the woman had gone. The man was still there.

Might have been the smell.

With a feeling like a block of ice to the stomach, Andi realized she was alone with this demon. She didn’t think he knew she was there - he couldn’t, she hadn’t made noise - but then again, he was a demon. She swallowed, and started to inch backwards, out of the dumpster fencing and back toward the restaurant.

She saw him walking away then, back toward the scrub surrounding the parking lot. He was shuffling, slumped. Even the frog on his head looked a little flatter than she might expect. His light-colored overcoat swung damply as he walked, globs of some unspeakable filth sloughing off its hem in his wake. 

Definitely a demon, she thought, before he disappeared entirely into the trees. She waited just long enough to assure herself he’d really gone before she took off running, back toward the restaurant, and didn’t stop until the door to the lot banged closed behind her.

She crossed herself again, just in case.

One of the line cooks was watching her, wryly amused. “Finally remembered what time it is, huh?”

“Shut up,” she said, looking down and smoothing her apron. 

“Anyway, Chrissy was back here looking for you,” he went on, referring to the manager. “She’s pissed. What kept you out there?”

“... Nothing.” Andi swallowed. “Just lost track of time.”

The cook winced. “Well, better think of something, if you want to keep your job. Make something up.” He gestured to the back door with his spatula. “Maybe say those grackles nesting above the door were attacking you or something.”

Andi blinked, and shrugged her shoulders, before slumping back toward the dining room. “Yeah. Something like that.”


	22. Rocky Mountain(s are) High

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter earns the temporary character death CW tag. If that will upset you, I advise waiting to read until all chapters through 24 are posted for the 'temporary' bit to come to fruition. :)

That night, there was a suite open in the hotel, miraculously available for the same rate as a regular room (“Last minute cancellation - lucky you!” the receptionist had said). Adam and Lucky exchanged a bemused look, and headed for it, followed by Crowley and Aziraphale as soon as Noel and Rachael were out of sight.

“So what should we do? What’s the plan?” Adam had been in the bedroom when he heard his godfathers trail in, but as soon as he heard the door close again he poked his head around the doorway toward the sitting area, where Crowley had already maneuvered Aziraphale onto the sofa. 

“Is this one of those that pulls out into a bed?” asked Aziraphale, slumping down into the cushions.

Crowley nodded. “Yeah, just give me - ah.” Aziraphale’s head lolled back, and the angel snored gently. “Well, it was an idea, anyway.”

Adam shifted from one foot to the other. Behind him, Lucky also paused in rummaging around in his bag and looked up. “Crowley? Plan?”

“Give me a minute. Got to think about it more,” said the demon, before he too slouched onto the couch, up against the unresponsive bulk of the angel. 

As focused as he was, Adam assumed whatever he’d done on the day of the tornado must have still been taking it out of him. He had a warm shower, and changed into his pajamas, and although he was determined to pin Crowley down for an answer, once he’d settled down onto the still-not-folded-out sleeper sofa, he only found the energy in himself to murmur, “So what?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Crowley said gently, running his hand through Aziraphale’s hair. He looked as tired as Adam felt, eyes half-closed. “I’m sure the trail will be plenty deserted to go over the finer points. It’s sort of depressingly easy, though.”

“Summoning and banishing?” he asked, yawning.

Crowley nodded, looking up briefly when Lucky padded in, his hair still wet from the shower. “Yep. Just summoning and banishing. Easy, if you know what you’re doing.”

Adam wasn’t sure he agreed, but he was also too tired to argue. So instead he shuffled off to bed, leaving Crowley, Lucky, and Aziraphale in the other room, Crowley flipping on the TV to some reality show or another that he and Lucky almost immediately started a lazy debate over.

In the morning, Adam found all three of them on the sofa, asleep. Aziraphale was still curled up against Crowley’s right side, Crowley was half-oozing off the sofa with his legs outstretched, and Lucky was curled into the smallest ball possible, his head on the demon’s shoulder.  _ What a bad demon _ , Adam thought, smiling wryly to himself and heading into the bathroom, being just loud enough to hopefully wake someone up without startling them.

\- 

There was breakfast in the lobby - cheap and hot, as is custom for hotel continental breakfasts - and Adam and Lucky ate with gusto, while Crowley nursed a bad cup of coffee and Aziraphale tried not to look too disappointed with the quality of the muffins. Adam had been pleased when the angel had been first to wake up that morning, and thought today he at least looked less ill. He even had a book with him, carefully set to the side of his cup of tea.

“So’re you gonna come with us too?” Lucky asked the angel, stuffing an entire half of an omelet into his mouth.

Aziraphale frowned, but didn’t bring up the breach of table manners. “I’m afraid I don’t think I’m quite up to that sort of sojourn yet,” he said, adding a little butter from one of the paper packets to the muffin in the vain hope it would improve the taste of the thing. “Besides, I’m certain you’ll be in good hands with Crowley.”

Adam frowned, a little worry twisting into his chest. “What about you, though? You’re just going to stay here by yourself?”

“Not quite.” Aziraphale smiled and wiggled a little in his chair, almost like his old self again. “I believe your mentors have found a spa nearby. I thought I would accompany them, just to ensure no harm should come to them.”

“Get your nails done, more like,” Crowley muttered into his coffee. Aziraphale beamed, and the demon rolled his eyes. “If it makes you happy,” he conceded, with a sigh. 

“They have all sorts of treatments. You know, you can have a chocolate facial peel?”

“Yes, angel, but you’re not supposed to eat the peel when you’re done.”

Aziraphale glared. “I knew that,” he said, but something about his tone suggested to Adam that perhaps he had not. He and Lucky giggled. “I did!” He huffed. “Anyway, I think one more day of rest will help me set back to rights. Or near enough, anyway, for tonight. Did you come up with a better plan, dear? I’m afraid I fell asleep.”

“We were going to go over it today, yeah. Although I’m not sure what better plan there would be - it’s all pretty simple in terms of do it, do it right, get it over with, off you go.”

Aziraphale gave Crowley a severe look. “Yes, I know, but  _ where _ ? And will it require any special materials. Blood, or the like?”

Crowley gaped. “That’s stereotyping,” he concluded finally.

“It is not -”

“You can summon  _ angels _ with chalk and herbs and incense or whatever, but demons need  _ blood _ ?” Crowley crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, for optimal sulking. “Can’t believe you, Aziraphale.”

“Do shut up, dear boy - he’s a Duke, I thought perhaps there would be something additional required. And you know I meant: do you need any special reagents?”

Adam and Lucky were resolutely not looking at one another, mostly because they both rather suspected that as soon as they made eye contact they would mutually burst out laughing. “No,” Crowley muttered. “Just chalk.”

“Very well, then.” Aziraphale took a sip of his tea. “I shall stay alert for any suitable locations today -”

“Don’t think a sauna will be very good for chalk drawings -”

“-  _ and when we meet again this afternoon _ ,” Aziraphale went on somewhat severely, while Adam and Lucky stifled giggles, “we can discuss the ideal location. I’d imagine we’ll want to perform the ritual under the cover of night.”

“Or behind a really big tree,” Lucky muttered. This time, Aziraphale  _ and  _ Crowley shot him a glare, and he snorted and quickly looked down to his plate, industriously studying the remains of his orange peel.

Crowley glowered at Adam. “Any other contributions?”

Adam shook his head, his face the picture of innocence. “No. No, we can look out for good places today. Maybe, though … maybe Lucky’s right, and the woods would be a good place? Away from other people?”

For a second, Crowley glanced between the two teenagers, before heaving a resigned sigh and saying, “Might have a point there, yeah. We can see how it looks around here, and if it’s too populated we’ll use the woods as plan B.” He growled, frustrated, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Bloody Hastur’ll try to set it on fire, though, bet you anything …”

With a consoling pat on the demon’s shoulder, Aziraphale said, “We’ll be alright, dear boy. We - oh, there go your humans.” Adam boggled, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Lucky doing the same. They way they were positioned around the table, Aziraphale’s back was firmly to the lobby, and he hadn’t turned around to check - as far as they could tell, there was no way he could have seen Rachael and Noel emerge from the hallway and cross the lobby toward the front door.

“How did you do that?” Lucky asked, bewildered, looking from Aziraphale, to the retreating figures of Rachael and Noel, back to Aziraphale. “How -”

Aziraphale dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin. He shrugged, and said, “‘And all their flesh, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, are full of eyes round about.’”

“He means,” Crowley summarized, with a roll of his eyes, “that he’s an angel. And they literally have eyes in the back of their heads. And the front, and the sides, if you want to get specific about it.”

Lucky’s face moved then through several expressions in quick succession: amazement, realization, betrayal, and then suspicion. “So  _ that’s _ how you always knew when I was up to something -”

“Just so.” He initially started to fold the napkin, and then thought better of it and crumpled it up, tossing it onto his plate next to the unfinished muffin. “Right, well, I’ll be off. Ah, in the event that you should need to speak with me, though …” Aziraphale had stood and started to move toward the door, but now he trailed off, one hand clutching his book, and the other tapping his lips thoughtfully. “Oh, dear, this would be another one of those occasions where a mobile telephone would be useful, isn’t it?”

Crowley groaned, although he threw a few consonants in for emphasis. “ _ Yes _ , Aziraphale. Yes it would be.” He sat up and rummaged around in his pocket before he pulled out his own mobile. “Here, take mine. I’ll be with these two, they both have theirs.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale hesitated, his hand hovering inches from the phone. “Are you sure -”

“Yes.” And then Lucky laughed and Adam grinned when he went on, “And the game you like so much is called Cessabit, it’s on the second screen when you swipe left.”

Aziraphale’s face relaxed into his habitual genuine smile. “Thank you, Crowley.” He took the phone and tucked it away into his breast pocket. “Shall I call you when I come back, if you haven’t returned already?”

“Sure.” He waved lazily as Aziraphale turned to go. “See you later, angel. Have fun.”

They watched him leave, walking out of the front doors with something like his usual spring in his step. It felt good to see that, and Adam was infinitely relieved by just that little detail. Crowley had never seemed outwardly worried about the angel through the last few days, but Adam had certainly been. More than once, the unpleasant thought that maybe angels could die from stretching themselves too thin had occurred to him, but he’d always tamped it back down, stuffed away. If Crowley wasn’t worried, he was determined not to be, either.

Across the table, the demon was stretching, and then shambling to his feet, pulling his clothes back into place. “Right. Let’s go look at some trees, or something.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” Lucky smirked, likewise getting to his feet. “You ever gone hiking, Nanny?”

“Course I have. But back when I did it, it was called a nomadic lifestyle, and people did it so they wouldn’t die.” He made a face and then led the way out of the hotel. “You two will never, ever truly appreciate the miracle that is agriculture and a non-migratory lifestyle. You ever had to carry all your worldly possessions on your back and walk across a mountain range?” He barked out a laugh. “Even had to do it blindfolded once or twice, because the humans got suspicious. Now you lot go out and climb mountains for  _ fun _ .”

“Hang on,” Adam pointed out, jumping into the back seat of the car, “surely some people thought that sort of thing was fun back then, too. Must have done, or else why would people still be doing it?”

Crowley waved a hand, dismissive. “I never spent much time with those people. Worst job I ever had was back in … oh, what would you call it now? Turkey, I think, but either way there was this mountain that the angels had said was  _ strictly _ off-limits to humans by decree of the Lord, mostly because a few of them liked to dust-bathe in this well at the top, but obviously then  _ I _ got orders to tempt them up there to see it was just another old mountain and sow doubt and all that.” He pulled out of the parking lot, still going on about how hiking didn’t used to be  _ fun _ , with Lucky and Adam both smiling and listening in the back seat, watching the town go by. Block-by-block, the buildings started to fade away, replaced by trees, and mountains, and clear, cool mountain lakes. Above, the sun shone down from a cloudless blue sky. 

-

The Rockies were breathtaking. Soaring peaks, clear water, and old forests all around, it was hard not to be in awe of the natural world. 

But Crowley, Adam also had to admit, might have been right about hiking. He wasn’t going to say anything out loud, of course, because Lucky was leading the way with gusto, Adam trailing slightly behind and Crowley plodding along at the back, occasionally muttering about turning into a snake because it would be easier going. In spite of the blisters he could feel forming on the outsides of his feet, rubbed in by his sneakers, he rather felt Crowley’s venomless grumbles were to be expected, and Lucky was having such a good time, Adam would have felt bad spoiling his fun.

The trail had been called ‘Blue 3’, and purported itself to be a mildly challenging hike to a peak which overlooked a large mountain lake which was, apparently, a breathtaking shade of blue due to some kind of algae. Blue 1 and 2 had been easier, with Blue 1 even having boardwalks for wheelchair access, but Blue 3 promised the best views of the lake and the mountains, and so, emboldened by the words ‘mildly challenging’ ( _ mildly _ , Adam thought, as he scrambled around a rocky little wash-out in the trail and stumbled his way back onto even footing), they had picked that one.

To be fair, mild had been a good descriptor for the first 45 minutes, until the trail split off from Blue 2, and started up a rather steeper incline than they’d encountered up to that point. They did meet with a park ranger at the split, who looked them over (Crowley, specifically, with his ridiculously skinny jeans and snakeskin boots), and said, gently, “It does get a little more challenging after this.”

“We’ll be alright,” Lucky had assured her, and off they went, leaving the bemused ranger behind.

That had been, by Adam’s estimate, about an hour ago. She had undersold it. For some reason, he found himself resenting her for doing so.

Yeah, Crowley had probably been right about hiking.

“Hey, Lucky?” he said, when the path leveled out a little and Adam could catch his breath. “Could you uh, give us a minute?”

“Hm?” The other boy stopped and turned. “Oh,” he said, breaking into an easy grin. “Yeah, sure. Sorry, just excited. Altitude getting to you?”

Adam returned the smile, and then sat down in the middle of the trail to adjust his shoelaces. “Yeah, definitely the altitude. You do this often?”

Lucky nodded. “Yeah! My friends and I go out all the time into Blue Ridge, or sometimes into the Alleghenies.” He chuckled. “It’s an easy way to get away from the parents for a weekend without too many questions.”

“Suppose it would be,” Adam agreed.

Crowley had finally caught up with them, and though he didn’t look taxed physically, he also didn’t look particularly pleased with the situation. “Middle of nowhere, innit?” he asked, looking up and then spinning around once to appreciate the surrounding pines. “Peaceful, I guess.”

“How much farther, do you think?” Adam asked idly, wriggling his feet around in his shoes and being careful not to wince when the blisters stung. He wasn’t sure why he expected anyone to know, being that either of them knew as much about the trail as he did.

“Shouldn’t be too far. I think the trailhead said three miles?” Lucky looked ahead. “And it looks like it really levels out after this last hill part.”

“I thought that was round-trip,” Crowley murmured. Suddenly, he glanced into the underbrush, where something small was rustling in the carpet of fallen pine needles. “Oh, hello, hang on. Oi.” The rustling stopped, Crowley crouched down, and started hissing.

On closer inspection, Adam realized he was talking to a snake. It was little, and brown, and wary at first, but gradually poked its head further out of the pine needles, returning hisses sometimes. They didn’t speak for long, but eventually Crowley seemed satisfied, and with a few final hissed words (words? Adam wondered), he stood up and turned back around, hands in his pockets.

“Ss’at the top of the hill, yeah,” he confirmed, nonchalantly. Lucky and Adam stared at him. “What? Are you sss - hng. Surprised?”

Lucky opened and shut his mouth once or twice and then said, “Well, no. Was just sort of … different to see someone talking to a snake, is all.”

“You talked to a snake two days ago,” Crowley pointed out, rather reasonably.

The taller boy frowned, and Adam grinned. “No I didn’t. I was talking to you.” Adam snorted. “There’s a  _ difference _ ,” Lucky insisted.

“Is there?”

Adam stood up and brushed his trousers off. “Kind of, to be fair. I mean, that little guy -”

“Lady.”

“ - lady was an actual snake. You’re a demon who’s snake- _ shaped _ sometimes.” He shrugged. “I dunno. It’s different.”

Crowley didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, alright. Well, either way, it’s right up there. She said there’s been nobody up there all day, either, so we ought to have the place to ourselves.”

“Great!” Lucky perked up. With a bit more enthusiasm, he turned and started back up the hill, Adam and Crowley behind. This time, Crowley kept pace, walking just behind Adam. “I don’t think this is a good place for summoning, though. I can’t imagine Aziraphale getting up here.” Crowley laughed. Adam supposed that was a good enough response.

“Maybe somewhere off the Blue 1 trail,” Adam suggested. “That’s easier, but there was still some dense woods around there. If we go off the beaten path a bit, I’d think we’d be alright.”

“Maybe,” said Crowley, although he sounded very doubtful. “I dunno. Like I said earlier: Hastur loves fire, and all the dead pine needles around here, plus the trees, it could get ugly. Fire won’t stay bound to a circle.”

Lucky looked back over his shoulder. “We could clear a space off. Or find a rock?”

“Maybe. Honestly, an abandoned parking lot would probably do just as well. Might be worth driving around a little this afternoon, and finding some run-down old place nobody goes to.” Just ahead, the trail flattened out, and Adam could have laughed with relief. Of course, they’d still have to get back  _ down _ , but -

But oh, was the view worth it, he thought, instantly forgetting his sore feet as soon as he crested the hill. Lucky had stopped too, and even here, a good fifty feet back from the head of the trail, they could see that the view beyond was  _ beautiful _ . Mountains reaching into the clear blue sky, snow-capped and towering over smaller crags brushed with pine trees, and grassy plains below. This, Adam thought, was what he’d always pictured when he’d thought of America, of the Rocky Mountains: there was a song about it even, wasn’t there? He couldn’t really remember. Slowly, grinning all the while, he started walking again, getting closer, finally matching Lucky’s pace as they rushed to the cleared area at the end.

The trail’s end was at the top of the ridge, and beyond the beaten path lay a steep, rocky downhill slope that tumbled toward Blue Lake. And  _ wow _ , was it blue: Adam had seen water that color before, but usually in the Mediterranean, not in any lakes he’d ever seen. He took a deep breath as he drew even with the edge, looking out over the hill and the pines and toward the lake. “Wow,” he breathed out, trying gamely to look at everything, all at once.

“Yeah.” Lucky swallowed. “Don’t get views like this, in the Alleghenies. Or water that clear.”

“But the color!” Adam said, recovering from his surprise enough to pull his phone out of his pocket and start snapping pictures. “Like, you can see through the water, but it’s like it’s been dyed or something!” He took a video too, scanning from left-to-right over the landscape, pausing for a good look at the lake. “My mum is gonna love this.”

Lucky had his phone out as well, and was similarly documenting the scenery. “This is great. Totally worth the hike.” He didn’t look back as he asked, “You ever seen anything like this, Nanny?”

“Never been to the Rockies,” said Crowley from behind them, noncommittal. “It’s nice, though. Very scenic.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed but he couldn’t help but smile. As he turned to face Crowley, who was stood behind them with his hands in his pockets, he asked, “You’re not comparing it to Eden, are you?”

“Eh.” Crowley shrugged. “Honestly, s’a compliment. Not many places remind me of there, not anymore.” He took another step closer to the edge and looked down the slope, studying it. “This is a bit taller than the wall, though. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t make a lot of sense. I always wondered why not put the Tree of Knowledge on a mountain like this, or the moon, you know? It could have been done.”

“It  _ should _ have been done.” Crowley spun first, fast as any snake in spite of his current shape, but Adam and Lucky weren’t far behind. Standing at the crest of the hill, where they’d just been not five minutes ago, was a … well, a woman-shaped angel. And she was definitely an angel, with sleek, white-and-brown speckled wings raised behind her. She was watching the three of them, her expression cool. “Far be it from me to question the Great Plan, but had Mother relocated the Tree I wouldn’t be in this position today, would I? None of us would.” Her eyes flicked to Lucky. “Your kind would still be in the Garden, happy and peaceful,  _ your kind _ ,” she looked to Crowley, “would be in Hell, and you -” Adam swallowed as her gaze fell on him, “- wouldn’t exist.”

“Y-yes, well, not how it worked out really, was it, Michael?” Adam felt Crowley brush his shoulder as he stepped forward, and heard Lucky whisper, “Oh, fuck,” at the same time.

“Regrettably, no.” Michael stood up a little straighter. “No thanks to you, Crowley. Always making things  _ complicated _ .”

Crowley shrugged, but didn’t shift his posture from defensive, coiled to spring. “It’d be a bit boring if everything were simple, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t think so.” Primly, Michael - Archangel Michael, thought Adam, shrinking back behind Crowley and closer to Lucky, who, it had to be noted, did not move away - moved her hands around to her front, adjusted her cuffs, and then clasped them. “The Great Plan was simple. But somehow the  _ two of you _ managed to muck that up.”

“Yeah, well, I think the outcome was a bit better, if it’s all the same to you.” Michael took a step to the left, as if to start moving around Crowley, but he mirrored her, keeping himself firmly between Adam and the archangel. “Anyway, not your place to say, is it?” Crowley sneered. “Obviously if everything is part of  _ God’s plan _ , then this is what’s supposed to happen, yeah? So piss off, ‘cause I doubt you’re here to take photos.”

“Hm.” Michael took another step, forward this time too, and Crowley moved in tandem. And Lucky, Adam realized, had his hand on Adam’s shirt, and was pulling him to the right, away from the edge and a few steps back. Adam followed. “I’m not, you’re right. I’m here to set the Plan back on track, as it were.” She looked at Adam again, and his blood ran cold. “There’s a bit of a faulty part in the machine. It could use replacing.”

“No,” Crowley hissed. “You will not.”

“I rather think I will.” She smiled. “And I doubt you can stop me.”

“Fuck,” Lucky whimpered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, hang on, fuck -” Adam shushed him.

Crowley snarled. “I can try.” In the space of a breath, his wings flapped out, and spread as much as they could to block Adam and Lucky from Michael’s view. “ _ Leave _ , Michael, and end this here.”

Michael regarded him for a second, tsked at the sight of his mangled wings, and then, with a shrug, said, “No.”

She was  _ fast _ and, Adam thought with despair, very strong. Well, she would be, wouldn’t she? She’d cast down his - no, she’d cast down  _ Lucifer _ during the Great Rebellion, Aziraphale and Crowley had told him that much. Adam cried out and jumped forward as she bore Crowley to the ground and raised her fist to hit him, but Lucky’s hand on the back of his shirt stopped him.

“No!” Lucky yelled, and at the same time Crowley, who had a hand twisted into Michael’s ascot and was holding her for all he had, yelled, “Run!” 

Michael hit Crowley with a knee to the gut, forcing the demon to curl up reflexively. “You think they can get away?” She started to stand, but Crowley was fast too, snake that he was, and he got his hand around the collar of her shirt before she could get up all the way and dragged her back down, forcing a cry out of her as she fell to her knees, straddling the demon. 

“Fucking run!” Crowley yelled again, before he grunted and lurched, pulling Michael toward himself and rolling all at once, until she was on her back with him over her, her wings pinned awkwardly under her body. He looked away from her snarl just long enough to glare at the boys. “ _ Go _ !”

A few seconds later, bounding down the trail, Adam considered Crowley might have used magic for that. He hadn’t  _ wanted  _ to run, and he was fairly sure Lucky hadn’t either, but they had, and now the two of them were sliding and sprinting down the mountain, faster than Adam had ever run in his life, side-by-side until Adam skidded to a halt and send stones and dust flying. As soon as he realized, Lucky stopped too, and turned to look at Adam, wild-eyed.

“We have to go back,” Adam said, already stumbling backwards up the hill. “We can’t leave him up there, he needed help.”

“He said run,” Lucky said, desperately. “We have to run, he said run. We have to get Aziraphale.” 

“But Crowley’s -”

Lucky’s eyes went wide, and his gaze snapped up, beyond the trees, toward the sky. “Fuck,” he said, half-whispering. Adam spun to look, and instantly felt his heart plummet to his feet as all the breath went out of him. “We have to run, Adam. I think it’s too late.”

Above the trees, rising into the sky, were two figures. One had huge, sleek, powerful wings - falcon’s wings, some remnant of Adam’s subconscious supplied - and the other was motionless, limp and hanging and being held quite firmly by, it seemed, the neck. The one with the larger wings flapped a few times, rising still upwards, and then caught a draft and drifted out, off of the mountain and over the lake.

Adam swallowed. “Let’s call Aziraphale,” he said quietly, and once again started to run.

-

The last thing Crowley remembered before getting punched in the head was getting one-up on Michael in the scrum. Well, alright, it was a fight. Crowley wasn’t much of one for fighting, never had been, but for a fleeting moment he thought ‘ _ Hey, maybe I’m not so bad at this _ ,’ before the Archangel’s face twisted underneath him and heard her growl, “ _ So annoying _ .”

Then she’d punched him in the head.

When he came to, the first thing he was aware of was a strange feeling of weightlessness. Well, sort of - in his feet, definitely. There was definitely something heavy around his neck - a hand, he thought sluggishly - and a cool weight around his wrists. 

Shackles, holding his hands behind his back. As a reflex, he tried to snap them off. They  _ burned _ , and that’s when he shouted, and opened his eyes.

Michael smiled. Angelically. Crowley didn’t whimper, but only because his trachea was feeling rather crushed at the moment. “Well, there you are. I thought you’d never wake up.” 

He might have glanced back over his shoulder to the shackles to confirm - they were blessed, they had to be - but with Michael’s vice-like grip on his neck his head was immobilized. Instead, he kicked one foot experimentally, and felt nothing below. Thin air. And though he couldn’t look down either, he could see the tops of the mountains and realized, rather chillingly, that maybe he didn’t want to.

His wings flapped a few times, desperately, instinctively. The right one just twitched and twisted, and a few of the less-robust feathers came loose and floated away. Michael laughed. “You think you’re getting anywhere with those things? You know as well as anyone, Serpent: on your belly you shall go.”

“Hng,” said Crowley. It was about all he could manage. He flapped a few more times, and tried to kick at her, but she was holding him away from herself, out of reach.

Michael looked down, her expression thoughtful. “I considered blessing the entire lake, you know. Or smiting you. You certainly wouldn’t be the first.” She sighed. “But you’re such a bother, Crowley, with all your little native advantages.” He flapped more forcefully, the left wing catching enough air to jostle the two of them a little, and she shook him. “I thought you’d be better if you were quiet. I was wrong. Be  _ still _ .”

For a moment, he was. His wings hung limp from his back, and he watched her, wide-eyed. “Of course,  _ I _ had to be the one to come up with a second plan, hm? Hastur isn’t much of one for planning.” She brightened. “Fortunately, he  _ is _ one for hosting welcome home parties for traitors who have fled Hell but who, regrettably, are discorporated.” She was practically beaming. “Especially ones he can’t readily kill. He’s quite looking forward to it, actually, the not killing you part.” Her smile turned sickly. “Sweet of him, don’t you think?”

Crowley made another incoherent, strangled noise, and started flapping his wings again, more desperately. He tried not to think about how the right one couldn’t flap at all, just jerked and twisted painfully, and instead he tried to imagine lift. Lift, lift, maybe from this height he could get  _ lift _ , he’d never tried from this high up before -

As if she could hear his thoughts, she chuckled and said, “Good luck with that.” She drew in a breath, like something had surprised her, or a sudden pleasant thought had occurred to her. Crowley let out a strangled whine. “Of course, you know what they say about flying, the humans? It’s just falling with style.” She used her free hand to tap him on the nose. “And you certainly have that in spades, don’t you? Hm.” She smiled with her whole mouth, showing her teeth, and not at all with her eyes. He flapped harder, trying, trying ... “Goodbye, Crowley.”

It wasn’t quite a million lightyears, thought Crowley, as he plummeted down, his crippled wings doing almost nothing to slow him and instead just sending him into a stomach-churning spiral. Not quite, but that didn’t make it anymore pleasant. He kept trying - lift, lift, lift, he thought desperately, trying to imagine the feeling of air beneath his wings as strongly as he’d imagined the Bentley holding together in the flames. But the Bentley was an Earthly creation, and wings were … He jerked his train of thought up short.  _ Lift. _

All the while, he struggled with the shackles too, yanking and pulling at them, practically trying to break his own wrists to get out, but it was no use. The crystal-clear, blue pool was getting bigger by the second, rising up to meet him.

No, he corrected himself in a sort of distant, detached way as he managed to get a foot up and over the chain between the shackles and furiously started kicking at it. No, it wasn’t rising up. Once again, he thought grimly, he was falling down.

It was the last thought he had before he hit the water and died.


	23. She Moves in Mysterious Ways (it's alright, it's alright, it's alright)

Had Adam been in any state of mind to think about it, he might have considered that the time they were making back down the trail was  _ blazingly  _ fast. They were skidding on loose rocks, occasionally sliding down steeper stretches, but invariably running  _ down _ , toward civilization and, hopefully, Aziraphale. Lucky, with his much longer legs, was ahead, but Adam was doing his best to keep up, just a few feet behind.

They were flying so fast, in fact, that when the stranger stepped out from the trees and onto the trail in front of them, Lucky didn’t have any time to stop, and collided full-force with the man, falling backwards and down, his back hitting the trail with a puff of dirt. Adam barely managed to shamble to a stop, his sneakers a hair’s breadth away from colliding with Lucky’s head.

The man in their path hadn’t moved: through the entire affair he was stone-still, watching them with a sort of bemused expression, one eyebrow raised and his hands clasped behind his back. He was tall - taller than either boy - and brown-skinned, and dressed like a reporter out of an old black-and-white film, down to the pencil stuck into his hatband, and the worn notebook just poking out of one of his pockets. Adam tensed. “Are you -”

“I am Raziel, angel of secrets,” the man said. Adam heard ‘angel’, and took a step back, while Lucky started to scramble upright. “Don’t worry, I’m on your side.”

Lucky made a noise that might have been a laugh, had it not been so strangled and hysterical. “Oh yeah? Prove it.”

Raziel was looking at Adam, and he didn’t break eye contact when he said, “Would you like to help Crowley and, incidentally, not be killed by Michael?” 

Adam gulped. “Prove it.”

The angel sighed, and rolled his dark eyes. “Fine. How?” He spread his hands. “Quick miracle, a Revelation, your choice.”

“Uh.” He hadn’t considered that. “Um. Er -”

Lucky chimed in as he clambered upright, “Swear on the Holy Bible!”

Raziel snorted. “I’ll do you one better and swear on my book of secrets straight from the Almighty, my entire thriller mystery collection, on Azirpahale’s entire library, and on the Ineffable Plan.” He pointed upwards. “If I’m lying, may God strike me down.”

They waited one beat, two. Nothing happened. Adam nodded. “Okay. Fine. Ray - Rayskiel?”

“Close enough.” He motioned for the boys to follow before he turned away and started down the trail at a run. “Come on, follow me. I warded a picnic table up here.”

“Shouldn’t we get Crowley?” Adam looked up, but the sky was clear and blue and empty. His stomach twisted. “Can you fly up and -”

“Too late for that. Come on, move.”

Adam yelled then, sliding once more to a stop and looking frantically upwards, searching the sky. “What do you mean?” He demanded. “What do you - he can’t fly, he told me he can’t fly and he was all the way up there! Where’s she taking him?”

Raziel stopped as well, and he pulled his hat off and ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair in obvious frustration. “You won’t like it, but if we keep going, it’ll be fine, alright? But you have to follow me if you want to live to help him.”

Adam was trembling. Lucky had been halfway between the two but he moved backwards now, standing beside Adam, quietly at attention. “What happened to him?” Adam asked, quietly, not moving. “What did she do?”

The angel grit his teeth and then, quietly, said, “Dropped him.” Adam cried out again, a word that might have been ‘no’ if he’d been capable of coherent speech, and it was only by the grace of Lucky’s hand under his shoulder that his knees didn’t completely give out. Raziel moved toward them then, and both Adam and Lucky scrambled backwards, but he was much faster, even uphill, and before they could get far he had his hands firmly on Adam’s shoulders, half holding him upright. “Listen to me, Adam, alright? Yes, she dropped him. Yes, he fell. He’s fallen before, he can do it again.” He didn’t flinch when Adam screamed and tried to rush forward, though he might as well have rushed a brick wall for all the angel moved. “But you’re going to want to pick him back up at the bottom, yes?”

“It’ll kill him,” Lucky whined quietly. “From that height? He’ll die.”

“Discorporate, yes. It takes more than that to  _ kill _ one of us.” Raziel tried on a crooked, forced smile. It didn’t suit him. “But discorporation only lasts as long as it takes to get a new body, and in this case, that will be not very long at all.”

Adam’s eyes were wide, streaming with tears. “But - But Hell -”

“ _ Doesn’t have to know _ .” The angel watched him for a minute. “Alright? Deep breaths. Stay with me. There’s more going on here than you know about, alright?” And in a voice that might as well have hurled Adam bodily back in time to the haunted house in Kansas City, Raziel intoned, “ _ Beware the Duke, beware the Warrior _ .”

“That was you?” Lucky asked. Raziel shook his head.

“No. But your little anti-Apocalypse squad has more friends than just Aziraphale and Crowley.” He shook Adam, gently. “Crowley is going to need you in a bit, understand? But you can’t help him if you don’t let me get Michael off your backs for now.”

Time stretched, and Adam found he couldn’t look away from the angel’s eyes: dark, dark brown, and ancient, and brutally honest. He swallowed. “Okay. What do we have to do?”

“Oh, God thank you.” Raziel sagged with relief and let his hands fall off of Adam’s shoulders. “Come with me - the picnic table’s this way.”

-

Being discorporated is never, ever a good time. The last time it had happened to Crowley was the 14th century, and was part of the reason he despised that time period so strongly. Aside from the whole experience of dying, which tended to be awful, the waking up was just as bad, if not worse. Reason being, demons woke up in the Pit, burning up all over again, screaming and writhing and swimming for the shore as fast as they could, before Leviathan decided they looked like they’d make a nice snack.

Which was why Crowley was rather pleasantly surprised when he woke up to the sensation of being enveloped in a cool mist, and a gentle rocking, almost as if he were in a boat.

Maybe he was dreaming. “Five more minutes,” he muttered, and rolled over, just in case. No sense interrupting a nice dream for eternal suffering.

Whatever he was laying on clunked - wood, then, supplied his brain happily - and rocked back and forth as he rolled. Yes, very much like a boat. He groaned, and curled in on himself more. An afterlife of boating wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe they’d re-done the Pit. Probably not - it was so quiet, except for the lapping of water against the sides of his probably-boat - and the Pit tended to have a bit more wailing.

Reluctantly, he cracked one eye open. And then remembered that his vision wasn’t that great, and scented the air instead.

A freshwater lake. Fog. A wooden boat. And an angel, and a demon.

He sat up quickly, useless wings flapping for balance so the boat wouldn’t tip. He braced his hands against the boat’s low sides, wide-eyed and looking around himself frantically, until he caught sight of two figures standing on the water just off the bow. Well, one was standing on the water. The other was standing on what appeared to be a paddleboard. 

“There you are,” said the one standing on the water. The other just smiled, all teeth. Crowley swallowed. He knew that smile: it was Verrier, Archduke of Hell and demon of disobedience. They hadn’t overseen Crowley in Hell, but had always appreciated his work, and he and the Archduke had spoken to each other once or twice. Crowley had a suspicion that Verrier had put in a good word with Beelzebub for him a few times as well, although he had never been able to confirm it.

Somehow, that did not make their appearance any more comforting. 

“We thought you’d never wake up,” said Verrier. “Very slothful, excellent work.”

Crowley nodded weakly before looking around. The boat was on, as well as he could tell, a lake, but the water was as black as the sky above, starless and infinite. Where the three of them were positioned was clear as well, but a thick, dark mist hung over the water in the near distance, just beyond their positions. Crowley squinted toward it, but it was no use: whatever it was, wherever this was, didn’t seem to want to play by the usual rules.

“Where is this?” he asked, shifting onto his knees. He might have stood, but he still felt a little discombobulated from the discorporation, and he didn’t trust his little boat besides. Verrier was standing on whatever that board was, but was doing so with practiced ease - Crowley imagined they had had the luxury of time to prepare. “What is this place? It’s not the Pit.” He leaned right to look over the edge of the boat, and could see his own pale reflection in the ink-black water, but nothing beyond. “Is this water?” he wondered aloud. He looked to the other two. “Who are you?”

Verrier chuckled. “Well, Crowley, I believe you know me -” he nodded, “- but my compatriot here today is Sachiel.”

“ _ Archangel _ Sachiel,” the angel supplied, although she didn’t sound particularly bothered by the omission. 

“Yes, fine, Archangel Sachiel, if you must.” Verrier shrugged. “Archangel of -”

“Forgiveness,” Crowley breathed, suddenly feeling even more lost than he had previously. He rocked back onto his heels, and Sachiel smiled.

“Among other things, yes.” Ticking the items off on her fingers, she said, “Forgiveness, benevolence, freedom, mercy, money, politics, and, for some reason, Thursday.”

“Well, someone had to take it,” Verrier noted. 

Sachiel paused for long enough to glare at the demon while the Archduke just wore their best winning smile. She glared for one, maybe two seconds, and then gave it up and turned her attention back to Crowley. “But forgiveness, I think, is most relevant to your position today, Crowley.”

In his little boat, Crowley tensed. He mantled his wings up over himself, which was a bit pointless if he thought about it, but it made him feel better, anyway. Slowly, as measured as he could and being very careful indeed to keep his voice from shaking, he said, “Why?”

“Always with the questions,” said Sachiel, but her tone was warm and soft. “I hear you’re famous for it. Certainly in the amount of time we’ve been watching you, I’ve noticed a trend.”

Crowley hissed, his forked tongue slipping out between pointed teeth. “And how long has that been?” He moved a little more toward the back of his boat, away from the other two. Again, he asked, “Where is this?”

“Ah, Crowley. We’ve been watching you since Armageddon. Or rather, since Armageddon didn’t happen.” Verrier chuckled. “You don’t think Beelzebub was the only member of the Dark Council that was paying attention?”

“Er.” He rather had, mostly because his experience with Mammon, Leviathan, Verrier, and the rest of the Dark Council was limited at best, and he’d always assumed they were too occupied with the bureaucratic workings of Hell to pay attention to some barely-recognizable field agent. Then again, averting Armageddon was perhaps the sort of thing he should have considered they’d paid attention to. 

“And this place is sort of … an in between place,” Verrier went on, laughing at Crowley’s obvious consternation. “Humans typically come here when they die, before they go to their final destination, but Azrael was gracious enough to carve out a little room for us today. Neutral ground, as it were, for us to have our conversation.”

Eyes narrowed, Crowley asked, “And what kind of conversation would that be?”

Verrier rocked eagerly back and forth on their paddle board, little waves rippling out from underneath the thing as it moved. “I thought you’d never ask. We’d like to make a deal, Crowley.”

“A deal,” he repeated, dully. 

“A  _ deal _ .” Verrier looked incredibly pleased with themself. “Would you like to hear it?”

Crowley cocked his head, increasingly suspicious. “Who authorized this deal?”

This time, Sachiel responded, in her smooth alto. “Us. Who else would need to? With our respective bosses both missing in action, it’s a bit of a free-for-all.”

“I might have had a Prince of Hell or two sign off on it, as well,” added Verrier with the same casual tone that one might discuss the weather. Crowley spluttered. “I’ll never tell who, mind you, but since your little one-demon uprising, things in Hell have been … different.” They rocked back onto their heels again, tipping the nose of the board upwards a little more. “You might be surprised how many demons of all ranks were rather relieved to see the entire Armageddon nonsense fall by the wayside.”

“And angels,” Sachiel nodded.

Crowley looked back and forth between the two of them. “You do know that  _ Michael _ is the entire reason I’m here?”

Sachiel sighed, her broad, snowy wings drooping a little as she did so. “I do. And Hastur. We are aware.”

He scoffed. “And you just think they’ll be  _ alright _ with this deal?”

Sachiel moved to examine the cuff of her robe. “I don’t really care much what those two think one way or the other, to be perfectly honest.”

_ That _ was a surprise, so much so that Crowley’s mouth dropped open quite without permission from his brain. Verrier was grinning again. “Me neither,” they added. “Like I said, Crowley, you and your angel companion weren’t the only two happy to see the entire bloody business fizzle out.” They giggled. “One might even say you two were … well, nearly in the majority, really.”

“No,” Crowley responded immediately, shaking his head firmly. “S’a trick. It’s part of the torture, innit?” His stomach was sinking as he said it, and he slumped a little in the boat. “It’s a trick, I’ll wake up in the Pit in a minute, right? Bet this isn’t even water,” he grumbled, and stuck his hand into whatever the boat was floating on. It didn’t burn. Rather, it was cool and … and wet. It was water.

Verrier spread their hands and looked to Sachiel, who nodded encouragingly. “No tricks, Crowley. Just a deal. Would you like to hear it? It’s very simple.” And with a sing-song voice, they added, “You get to go back to Earth in your own corporation after, if you accept.”

He looked back up at the other two. “And if I don’t?” he asked sharply.

“Then you will be cast into the Pit, where Hastur is waiting for you, and whatever becomes of you after that point is out of my hands - I certainly can’t secure you a new body any faster, not without drawing undue attention.” Verrier shrugged. “You were intercepted solely for the purpose of this meeting; by refusing the meeting, or refusing the terms, our meeting will end, and the rest of your discorporation will continue as usual.”

Crowley sneered. “But you’re not trying to sway me either way, of course.” With a roll of his eyes and a heavy sigh, he said, “Alright, let’s hear it.”

“Oh, very good. Verrier, if you could get out the paperwork, I will summarize.” Sachiel bounced on the balls of her feet a little, in a movement that reminded Crowley of Aziraphale, and made some aching stab of sorrow twist in his gut. Aziraphale was on Earth. Well, if this deal involved going back to Earth, then …

“You are aware, of course, that all humans are assigned a guardian angel?” Sachiel waited for him to nod before going on. “A low-ranked member of the Choir, to be sure, sometimes even humans who were particularly suited to the task in life, but vitally important to their caseload of assigned humans all the same. They are assigned their charges at birth, and their duty is to follow and protect the human until such a time as Azrael claims them, as I am sure you’re aware.

“The thing,” Sachiel went on, and Crowley realized that to her left Verrier was rifling through a small stack of papers, “is that at the moment there are two humans who do not have a guardian of any sort: one Mr. Adam Young, and Mr. Warlock Dowling, better known as Lucky.”

Crowley had been watching Verrier carefully, but as Sachiel spoke both boys’ names his head snapped back around to face her, wide-eyed. “What? How? Er,” he added, as a thought occurred to him, “Alright, maybe not for Adam, that’s sort of self-explanatory -”

Sachiel nodded. “Yes, he was hidden from the celestial rosters due to being the Antichrist. Yes. And to be frank, I don’t think anyone ever even bothered to check if Lucky was on the rosters of human babies requiring guardians, or thought that perhaps his presence  _ on _ said roster might infer the truth of his origins.” She sighed. “Either way, when Aziraphale identified him as the Antichrist and assumed his role as the good influence on the boy’s life, the guardian position was thought to be redundant anyway, and none was assigned. And then after Armageddon, well, things were in a bit of a kerfluffle for a while, as I’m sure you can imagine, and we’re not exactly in the habit of double-checking whether any eleven year-olds are requiring a guardian or not.” She shrugged. “A simple organizational oversight.”

“Hmmm,” said Verrier, very loudly. Sachiel didn’t respond, although she did glare at them again.

“In any case,” she went on rather pointedly, turning her attention back to Crowley, “we find ourselves in a position where two boys - one of whom, yes, is the Antichrist but appears to be more interested in being human - require a guardian. And we find ourselves acquainted with an individual who would, perhaps, be capable of rendering those services without prejudice.”

Crowley stared at her for a minute, while his brain caught up with and tried to pick apart what had just been suggested. “An - rendering services?” He licked his lips, though it did little, dry as his mouth was and incorporate as he was, “You’re not talking about me - Aziraphale’s the angel -”

Sachiel laughed warmly, a genuine laugh. “Ha! And he is also a Principality who is very preoccupied with the safety of that entire damp island, retired or not. No, he’s quite busy enough already. We  _ are _ talking about you.”

He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Pregnant silence ballooned in the little misty clearing, filled only by the quiet rippling of the water against the sides of his boat, and under Verrier’s paddleboard. “I’m a demon,” he said finally, stupidly, when neither Sachiel or Verrier didn’t seem to be inclined to contribute anything else.

Verrier looked up from the papers, expression mild. “Really? Hadn’t noticed.” They snickered. “Of course you’re a demon, you idiot, but you’re a  _ retired _ demon. And what is a retired demon, really? You can’t go back to Heaven -” Crowley felt a small weight lift off his shoulders, and was surprised at how relieved that little fact made him feel, “- and you’re not welcome in Hell. But you can still conduct miracles, still stop time and warp space. So what  _ are _ you?”

They were watching him, quiet and attentive, Sachiel and Verrier. They expected an answer from him, he realized. He stammered a little for a bit, before finally offering up a shrug and saying, weakly, “Dunno.”

Verrier made a frustrated noise. “A free agent! You’re a free agent, Crowley, with all of the powers of a demon but none of the loyalties!” They paused to sniff with disdain. “Do you see?”

“Not … well, maybe?” The events of the past … however long it had been … were a bit of a confused muddle in his brain, which was still objecting to having to function in spite of discorporating so recently, but Crowley had never been stupid, and he was trying to get the pieces to slot into place. Unfortunately, he felt like he was missing one big, significant piece. “So the boys need a guardian -”

“Yes,” Verrier practically sighed. “Yes, and -”

“But I’m not an angel, and you just said I’m not going back to Heaven,” Crowley cut them off, raising a finger. The Archduke bit back a scream, and covered their face with the sheaf of papers. Sachiel, on the other hand, laughed again. 

“No, you’re not, and no one’s going to ask you to. So would you, demon Crowley, accept the terms of being a guardian  _ demon _ ?”

Crowley scoffed. “That’s not a thing.” Still hidden behind the papers, Verrier moaned, as if in pain. 

“No.” Now it was Sachiel’s turn to sigh, the warm smile sliding from her face. “No, it isn’t. Or at least, it never has been. But, well, these are new and exciting times. And to be honest, Crowley, those boys  _ need _ a guardian - someone’s been trying to kill them for somebody’s sake - and you’ve been doing a good enough job of it up to this point anyway.” She shrugged, her feathers rustling with the movement. “Besides, I can’t find an angel willing to add the Antichrist to their caseload, regardless of their feelings about the apocalypse.”

There was another long pause in which the water lapped at the boat, and Crowley thought, staring all the while at the other two. Verrier had lowered the sheaf of papers and was watching him back, shrewd as anything. Crowley rather got the feeling they knew what he was going to say, although he hadn’t really figured it out yet himself.

“So you’re asking …  _ me _ … to be a guardian … guardian something, for the two not-Antichrists?”

“Exactly,” said Sachiel, while Verrier sagged with relief. “As I said, it basically entails all you’ve already been doing, although you will have, you know, the traditional guardian abilities to sense trouble for those on your caseload. We do it through the mobile phones nowadays, it’s actually rather nifty.”

“I’ll bet,” Crowley replied faintly. His mind was racing, trying to parse what this meant, how this would play out. “But they’d have to be together. I mean, and I’d have to stay with them -”

Verrier waved the papers. “It’s all in the contract, Crowley; you will be endowed with some small abilities to enable you to do your job without hovering over the two of them like some kind of deranged nanny. Again.” Crowley snorted. “Would you like to see?”

Crowley thought about it, unconsciously drumming his fingers on the side of the boat. Well, just looking … “Alright.”

Verrier handed the contract over to Sachiel, who padded softly across the water to Crowley’s boat. He was surprised to see the print on the contract was actually quite large, and legible for him, which meant that even with the stack of pages reading went fairly quickly. At some point, he shifted carefully to sitting cross-legged in his boat, hunched over the contract.

It was, as contracts went, fairly straightforward. Oh, certainly there were all sorts of legal phrases and that sort of thing - someone in Hell had clearly written it up - but the points were clear: Crowley would be the guardian for Adam and Lucky, protecting them from all supernatural and untimely harm, and guiding them as needed. To that end, he would be allowed some small additional liberties not typically granted to demons, including miraculous travel to parts unseen if needed (similar, he assumed, to his short-distance travel capabilities but over rather longer stretches that would typically require flight), and increased tolerance to Holy energies including blessings and, to a small extent, Holy Water. He hovered over that point for a little while, wondering if they knew - they couldn’t know, could they? He and Aziraphale had been so careful - and then moved on. He would be under the direct purview of Sachiel, and unofficially on Heaven’s books throughout the term of the deal.

Should he satisfy the conditions of the deal for the remainder of Adam and Lucky’s natural lives, the contract would terminate at the time of their deaths, and additional contracts might be proposed. Should he willfully violate the contract, all privileges allowed him would be stripped, and he would be subject to punishment at the discretion of Verrier and/or the remainder of the Dark Council (“Don’t like that,” he muttered, as he read that bit). Should he refuse, no other action would be taken besides a blessing to bind him from speaking of this meeting again to anyone not present. Which, as Verrier had summarized earlier, meant waking up again in the Pit, with no body, and no way out.

He read every line to the very end of the entire contract, and then he barely hesitated when he lit a spark of hellfire on his fingertip and made his mark. Verrier beamed. Sachiel clapped politely.

“Very good,” the Archduke said, while Sachiel crossed the water again to retrieve the signed document. “The logical choice, really.”

“Can’t say I much liked the other options,” Crowley admitted. He shrugged, wings rustling. “And anyway, ah, it’s a bit as you said: I’ve sort of been … doing it anyway, to an extent.”

Verrier nodded. “We’re just making it official. Excellent. Well, Crowley, it’s been wonderful working with you, I believe this is the part where I wish you hideous luck and tell you I’ll see you in the Pit in a few years.” They winked, and the bottom dropped out of Crowley’s stomach. Had he missed something? “Unless, of course, you take good care of your charges, in which case, on the official word of Hell: Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” Crowley laughed at that, a sudden, startled noise in the quiet of this place, and Verrier turned their attention to Sachiel. “Anything else from me?”

“No, I think that will suffice.” Sachiel smiled. “We will be in touch?”

“But of course,” was all Verrier said in response. Crowley’s mouth dropped open, and he was still gaping when the Archduke stepped off of the paddle board and plunged into the water, the ripples from the splash setting Crowley’s boat rocking. Quickly, the ripples died away, and quiet settled over Crowley and the Archangel again.

“So,” Crowley said, eventually closing his mouth, all the while acutely feeling the awkward pang of the quiet, and the mist, and the Archangel’s watchful eye on him. “I suppose I, er, go back now? To … to my old corporation?”

“Y-es.” Sachiel frowned. “There was one more thing, though, from the contract: the question of travel over distances. I’m sure you read that bit.” Crowley nodded. “Typically, flight is the preferred method.”

Demonstratively, Crowley arched his wings out, the sparsely-feathered left one to its full extent, and the broken, nearly-featherless right one twisting a little out of its usual posture. “Gonna have a uh, a bit of a tough time with that,” he said, as the right wing crackled. He let it relax back to his shoulder. “Sort of … ah, sort of was the whole problem today, really.”

“I know.” Sachiel looked back over her shoulder. “But we are  _ very _ traditional, us angels. And, well, you did save the world. Sort of. Certainly you put in a strong assist.” She looked back to Crowley sidelong, and smiled. Crowley blinked. “Perhaps you deserve a  _ bit _ of a reward.”

When Raphael stepped out of the mist, his only coherent thought was  _ ‘This isn’t happening _ .’ Oh, the contract had been real, probably, and he could still feel the sting of hellfire on his fingertip where he’d signed, but this wasn’t … he must be hallucinating before he woke up, or something.

Millenia ago, Raphael had been his boss, and had been the one to stand over him with a flaming sword, tears in his eyes, and try to insist that for traitors, death would be more merciful than Falling. He hadn’t seemed sure of it, but rather than try to talk him out of it, Crowley had jumped. Sauntered vaguely downwards.

Raphael looked different now - female-presenting, young, in a hooded sand-colored robe, with her long, red hair braided over her shoulder - but it was unmistakably Raphael, all six gold-edged wings on display. And she was still crying.

“I’ll let you two talk,” said Sachiel quietly, and with a flap of her wings, vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im covered in ant bites from gardening today but i really wanted to post this chapter so i called it quits early and came in to post this instead. say thank you ants for the early update.


	24. Touched by An (Arch)Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYO friends so we do have a content warning on this chapter for descriptions of dead bodies. If you would like to skip over that bit, I advise reading to the first scene break, and then skipping the first two paragraphs immediately after that. There are mentions afterwards but nothing graphic, so it should be alright.

Crowley tried to swallow, and found it incredibly difficult to do so around the lump in his throat. “Raphael.”

“Little brother,” she said, her voice tremulous, and had Crowley not already been sitting he would have collapsed at the address. He started to shake again, and his hands clenched at the sides of the boat with a white-knuckled grip. She stared at him for another second - minute? Hour? Who knew - and then sobbed, loudly and openly. “I’m sorry.”

Snakes couldn’t cry. Crowley couldn’t either, not since he’d fallen, but now his eyes burned like he might, though tears never came. His breath was coming in shaky gasps, too. He  _ was  _ crying, he thought, tears or no, and he didn’t know why.

He ought to be angry. He ought to be furious, be vengeful. Raphael had been there to kill him back then, after all: had chased him to the end of their creations, past the stars and nebulas, until there was nowhere left to run to. Raphael had held a flaming sword aloft, and sobbed, and told Crowley to stop talking because Crowley had always been too good at talking - at the loopholes and the questions - and Raphael couldn’t take it. And when Crowley had wondered aloud if it was worse to die than to Fall, Raphael had let him find out.

He ought to be holding a grudge. Instead, he buried his face in his hands and groaned. “Ralph -”

“Crowley, I have regretted it - everything - since that War,” she cried, her breath hitching. “I know it was all God’s plan, but not a day went by when I wanted to ask why? So much death, and conflict, and was Falling any better than dying?” She strangled a sound that might have been a scream, and slashed a hand through the air viciously. Crowley flinched. “I thought for certain I would Fall myself, because not a day went by when I didn’t ask God to show me just a part of the Plan, a part of  _ why _ that had to happen.” 

He nodded slowly in response. “But you had faith there was a reason; you didn’t Fall.”

“Yes.” She wiped her tears with the cuff of her robe, though more ran down her face again in short order. “I did, but God help me, it was hard.” She took a shaky breath. “I am so sorry, little brother. You stayed my hand, you know? I didn’t raise my sword again after that, just retreated to heal the others. Had I - If I’d killed you instead …” She squeaked and blotted her face again. “Oh, God.”

Crowley wondered what his role was here: he had Fallen, he was a demon, and though he was increasingly becoming suspicious that God might have some kind of loose list of bullet-points for all existence, he still didn’t believe for a second there was a formal  _ plan _ , ineffable or otherwise. Raphael had almost killed him over that lack of faith. But they  _ hadn’t _ . They hadn’t, and they’d let him go, and, apparently, had spent the last 6000 years thinking about it.

A million different words sat heavy on the back of his tongue, some angry, some glib, some sad, all waiting while his mind whirred through the possibilities. And then he said thickly, “I forgive you,” and was just as surprised as she obviously was to hear it. Morseo, he was surprised to find it was true. He shrunk a little under her wide-eyed stare. “It was a … weird time.”

Raphael’s hands were shaking at her sides when she asked, quietly, “Can I … do you mind if I come over?” 

He nodded, and she closed the distance between them in an instant, water rippling away under her footfalls. She was so small in this form, but she was strong, and when her arms wrapped around Crowley it hurt, at first, until he realized he was bracing for something else, something that wasn’t a crying Archangel holding him like a … well, like a long-lost sibling. He relaxed, willing himself to do so at first and then uncoiling into it all at once, and Raphael started crying harder again, holding him, the two of them shaking. Crowley sniffled, and closed his eyes, and let his face rest in her hair. She smelled like stars, just like he remembered. 

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, her voice close in his ear. “I’m sorry.”

Weakly, he wrapped his arms around her, finding a way between the wings, and patted her back. “I’m not.” She laughed a little at that, and he snorted. “Turned out alright, I think. Thanks for not killing me, though.” She squeaked and held him tighter. Had he been human, breathing would be a challenge. As it was, he sat and let her hold him. 

Time must have passed, although Crowley would be hard-pressed to specify any one thing about the strange, still place in-between that gave him that impression. Maybe just after all his time on Earth, some part of him insisted that time  _ must _ pass. He could faintly remember a point, long, long ago, when he’d still been an angel, when time hadn’t been invented yet. Had time passed then? Must have done, except he was fairly sure it hadn’t. He wondered if this place was the same. 

Time or no, Raphael held him for a while longer, crying quietly until his shoulder was thoroughly damp where she’d buried her face. She spoke again eventually, although she didn’t let him go. “When Sachiel told me her plans, and when Raziel confirmed that it could - would - happen -”

Gently, Crowley teased, “He makes it up, you know.”

“He  _ doesn’t _ .” She unclenched one finger enough to poke him in the ribs, and he squirmed sideways. “Anyway, when I heard what the plan was, Sachiel and Verrier’s plan, I wanted to help. But I was so afraid you wouldn’t - that I wouldn’t be able to. I wouldn’t have blamed you.” She pulled back. “But we’ve been watching -”

“Of course you have, bloody nuisances.”

She ignored him. “- and I hoped and prayed this would happen.” She smiled wetly. “I never Fell, little brother, but what you said that day changed me, changed how I do things. And whether I should or not, I feel I owe you a debt.” Her eyes drifted to look behind him, to his wings. And then she looked up to meet his eyes. “Will you let me repay it a little?”

Crowley looked back at her, expression neutral, careful that even without his sunglasses his face would betray nothing. He thought about it. And then he asked very quietly indeed, “Will it hurt?”

“No.” She smiled. “You’ll let me?”

He looked around to the right wing as Raphael let him go, and then he shrugged, and heaved a tremendous sigh. “Suppose you can’t make it any worse.” He grimaced as, unbidden, images of other demons’ bloodied, putrid stumps of wings jumped to mind. “Er, well -”

“I won’t. And it won’t hurt. You have my express promise.” Hesitant at first, she reached out toward the right wing, and Crowley drew it back, watching her nervously. She frowned, hand still outstretched. “There might be something I  _ can’t  _ do, though.”

He hadn’t really dared to allow himself to hope. Or rather, he’d tried not to. Evidently he must have hoped though, a little, because he felt his gut lurch. “What’s that?”

She smiled a little. “I can’t make the feathers black. You’ll have to pick another color.”

Whatever he was expecting her to say, it hadn’t been that. He stared at her, mouth half-open, and then said, surprisingly peevishly, “What, you want me to go around all mis-matched looking? As if I’m not going to be weird enough already?” He threw up his hands. “Demon on the outs with Hell and on contract with Heaven, doing guardian angel stuff, living with an angel, and then  _ goofy-colored wings _ ?”

By the time he stopped, Raphael was laughing a genuine, rich laugh that settled in his chest and left him feeling warm. “I didn’t say it had to be  _ goofy _ ,” she giggled, finally. “That’s entirely up to you. It just has to be … not black. Seems thematically appropriate, anyway.”

Crowley glowered in spite of himself. “I have an image to maintain, you know.”

“I could do dark grey?” she suggested.

“No, no, you can’t mix blacks, it looks terrible.” He looked upwards in mock despair, shoulders heaving with the gesture, and gazed into black void. “Give me a minute. It’s been a lot, today.”

“Yes. I’d imagine.” Quietly, she repeated his earlier sentiment. “It’s been a weird day.” He snorted, and continued to think.

White seemed the most obvious option. Probably, as Raphael had said, thematically appropriate as well. But it didn’t seem  _ right _ . White was the color of the soulless expanse that was Heaven these days. He could do something dun, just to the brown side of white, but that was Aziraphale’s color, and it didn’t seem right either. Blue was right out, same with green and yellow. Purple, he thought, might do it …

“Is your hair always that color, every corporation?” Raphael asked suddenly. “I remember it was the same color back … then.”

Absently, he reached up to pull at a strand of his hair, shoulder-length these days. He’d had it tied back that morning, but so much for that. Discorporation will do that to you. “Yeah,” he answered, studying his own hair as if seeing it for the first time. “I like it.” 

“I could do the feathers to match.” The thought had not occurred to him, honestly, and when he looked back down to her it must have shown on his face. She shook her head, smiling. “It doesn’t just have to be shades of black and white. Like Sachiel said, it’s a brave new world. Besides,” she added, and the twinkle in her eye had the same mild-mannered mischief he remembered it having all those eons ago, “I have some stardust I could throw in, just for extra pop.”

Crowley didn’t really need to think much more about it, once she’d said that. “Do it,” he said, quickly, offering his left wing. “Red’s good. My red, not yours.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” she answered, a little sad and a little amused, and laid gentle hands on the leading edge of the better wing. Instantly, he felt the warm tingle of healing magic - not burning, like the holiness he felt in churches, or when Aziraphale might have accidentally whiffed him with a particularly strong blessing - and then a curious prickling sensation. She had been true to her word: it didn’t hurt, but it did feel odd. Odder still, though, was the sight of his wing changing as he watched. 

He was used to his wings by now; had been for at least 4000 years. They might be mangled, but they were his, familiar as the tattoo on his face. The left one had never broken, but the burning sulfur of the Pit had seared away a good number of the coverts and some flight feathers, and where it had scarred the feathers never grew back. Now, though, there were red feathers growing in among the black, all kinds, soft down and long primaries, shorter secondaries and stout coverts. It didn’t seem real, not really, although if the itching were any indication it definitely  _ was _ . He swallowed, and tried to keep his body from trembling, the bloody traitorous thing. Raphael hummed while she worked - he remembered that, the humming while they hung the stars - and just when Crowley was sure she had finished because there was no room for any more feathers, she reached into her pocket and produced a handful of stardust and swiped it across the entire underside of his wing.

He wasn’t really sure what he’d thought would happen, just that he’d wanted it. He couldn’t see the stars clearly anymore, not with the eyes he had, but he’d thought with the stardust he might be able to feel them. And, certainly, it was warm, warmer than his feathers ought to be, warm enough to break through the perpetual serpentine chill he was used to. More importantly, it was clearly, visibly there. Gold - no, wait, he thought, when Raphael moved her hands away and he could bring his wing in front of himself to study it. Not gold. Yellow, the warm orangey-yellow of a sun, edged the red feathers, and even in this dark place managed to let off a little glow. 

He couldn’t say anything, because that lump in his throat was back. Instead, he just flexed the wing in and out, and then ran trembling fingers down one of the new, healed primaries, lingering at the yellow edge. He was breathing again, shaky and shallow. Crying-but-not. 

“You don’t like it?” Raphael asked quietly. He shook his head. 

“Can’t believe it,” he croaked. “It’s … this is real?”

She nodded. “Very real. For real real, even.” She held out her empty hands. “Let me do the other one?”

“It’s broken,” he said automatically. As if to confirm it, the arthritic joints protested loudly when he tried to offer the limb to her. “It never healed right.”

She fixed him with a serious look. “I’ve seen worse, Crowley. May I?” He nodded, and she started. The joints and the bones first, because the way the wing had come to be was so twisted that some of the feathers wouldn’t have room to grow. At a few points, he had to choke back a moan as pain he’d had since Falling, pain that he’d long since gotten used to and consolidated into background noise, vanished, leaving behind nothing but a dull ache, like muscle soreness. Though the breaks were extensive, she worked quickly, and when she’d finished mending the structure of the limb she paused.

“Go on,” she told him, as he marveled at the nearly-featherless but completely functional limb. “Move it around a little.” He did, weakly, and although it felt alien, his wing moving in arcs it hadn’t done without assistance or pain as long as the Earth had existed drew a low, keening whine out of him. “It hurts?” the Archangel asked carefully.

He shook his head vehemently. “No.” He choked on a gasping breath that might have been a sob, and crammed his fist into his mouth.

“Let me do the feathers,” was all she said in response, and he nodded and looked away, keeping his eyes on the left wing, the one she’d done already. The itching had started again on the right, and he twitched, feeling the joints move through angles he’d forgotten they could. “Hold still.”

“Ssorry. It’sss … Sorry.” He took a breath or two to steady himself, and when he next spoke he was very careful not to hiss. “It’s an adjustment.”

Raphael chuckled, though her hands never stilled in her work. “Still hissing, hm? Nearly done, hold still.”

“Hn - Hang on.” Crowley looked around, and didn’t pay attention to his wing for a minute, because he felt that at the moment he was only really capable of dealing with one thing at a time, and what Raphael had just said had jumped to the forefront of his attention. “What do you mean ‘still hissing’, I’ve only been hissing since -”

“You hissed before that,” she said plaintively, drawing a long, sleek primary into being as he stared at her. “You don’t remember?”

Crowley blinked. “I … don’t.”

She didn’t respond to that, not right away, and hummed instead, working her way over the wing. There were considerably more missing feathers on this side, and she was taking her time with them, making sure they came in just so. Then she broke the silence with, “Do you think you’ve changed a lot, Crowley? Across your entire life? I mean, the  _ entire  _ thing?”

He thought about it. It was a big question, a heavy question, but considering all the other things he’d had to confront of the past however-long-his-discorporation-had-been, he found the answer was surprisingly simple. “No, not really.”

“Ha.” Her smile broadened to a beaming grin, and she tugged the last covert into its place before she reached into her robe for stardust. “Me neither, little brother.”

He was still stuck on something from earlier. “I don’t remember hissing -”

“Maybe you will.” She looked away from his wing - black and red and yellow and glimmering like a work of art (it was) - and to his face. “I don’t see why you would, but you never know. Sometimes when things heal, there are downstream effects.”

Crowley narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t … I wasn’t a snake  _ before _ , was I? I’d remember. I feel fairly certain I’d remember.” Although even as he said it, he acknowledged to himself that he wasn’t at all certain: parts of Heaven before the Fall were crystal-clear in his memory, especially close to when he’d Fallen, but other parts were … hazy. He’d always put it down to time not properly existing, but maybe -

“You were under my purview,” Raphael said, cutting off his train of thought. She tapped his forehead, which sent a pleasantly warm buzz through his body that lingered long after her touch had gone. “Serpent and a staff, yes?”

“Oh.” His face twisted as a thought occurred to him. “But no, hang on, I  _ remember _ not knowing what I was when I came out of the Pit, I didn’t know what a serpent was, and I’m  _ sure _ if I’d been one before I wouldn’t have been so bloody confused.”

Raphael raised an eyebrow. “Were serpents invented, before the War?”

“Ye - wait.” He frowned, and his brow furrowed as he thought, one hand drifting up to tap his lips absently. “Were they invented? Now you mention it …”

“They were not.” She said back, cross-legged on top of the water, and folded her hands in her lap. She was still smiling, looking over his entire form appreciatively. He flapped his wings, and then startled himself with his ability to do so. She laughed. “I think it’s going to take some getting used to again, but I’m sure you’ll be alright. Really, you always are, aren’t you?”

He considered it. “Suppose I am.” And then he raised a finger. “But hang on, if serpents weren’t invented yet, then how come you remember me hissing -”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “You should go now, little brother. We’ve been here long enough. Azrael is going to get testy.”

“No, time doesn’t exist here. What I’m saying is, if serpents hadn’t been invented, but I hissed because serpents are your thing and I worked for you, then how does that make any sense?”

Raphael sighed, her grin turning exasperated. “Because time is a flat circle?”

“Oho, no, no you don’t get to do that.” Crowley was waving his finger now - waving it at an Archangel - and he arched his wings up behind him. He was so distracted by his train of thought that it barely even registered as something he could  _ do now _ . “No, that doesn’t work, I know it doesn’t work like that.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you you had a speech impediment?” she asked flatly.

“I never did.”

“I’m telling you, you’ve always hissed. Ever since Creation. I remember.”

Crowley sneered. “You  _ misss- _ remember, more like. I never hissed -”

“You need to go back,” Raphael told him, firmly. “We can’t be here forever.”

“Pretty sure we can, actually.” He looked around. “In-between dimension, innit? No time limit -”

She took his face in her hands and, laughing, said, “Adam and Lucky need you, remember? They think you’re dead, right now.”

“Oh.” He sagged, wings drooping. “Yeah. Nearly forgot. Right, I should get back to them. Er.” He looked around again. “How?” Raphael looked pointedly to the water. Crowley grimaced and groaned. “Really?”

“Your corporation is currently floating face-down in a lake,” she pointed out. “It’s not like you’re not already soaked.”

“I’m not going to be able to walk on water now, am I?” He leaned over the edge of the boat and it rocked ominously. When he dipped his hand into the water it met no resistance, just like before. “No?”

“Try and see,” she said, although her wry grin indicated that no, he wouldn’t, but she’d be happy to watch an attempt. “Before you go, though, little brother …” She trailed off, and Crowley looked up to watch her face, waiting for her to gather her thoughts. “They don’t let me out very much anymore. Children’s hospitals always get me, you know.”

He nodded silently. He did know. 

“But in the event I were to sneak out sometime, well …” She raised an eyebrow, and he nodded again. “South Downs, England?” Another nod. “You have an IHOP or anything around there?”

“Euch.” He made a face. “No. We have a proper pub, with proper Sunday brunch, and I’m never telling Aziraphale you asked about  _ IHOP _ . I’ll let him buy you the full English, and you’ll forget IHOP ever existed.”

Raphael laughed again, that same warm laugh that Crowley was coming to realize he’d missed over the past millennia, even in spite of everything. “I doubt it, but I welcome the attempt anyway.” He was leaning back over the side of the boat again, staring at his reflection in the dark water, his healed wings vibrant and shining behind him. He couldn’t quite help the half-cocked grin that followed. “Crowley? Before you go?” He looked over to her, where she was sitting on the surface of the water. She was still smiling, but it had gone soft now. Peaceful. “Thank you.”

Slowly, he looked himself up and down, and then spread his wings, twisting to look at each in turn. “Thank you, too,” he concluded, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. The burning feeling was back at the corners of his eyes again, although he still couldn’t shed tears - she hadn’t done that - and so he swallowed thickly instead and forced a smile and said, “Full English down the pub, with blood sausage and everything. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said with a nod, and extended her hand. They shook on it, her hand warm and soft around his own cold, bony one. “I look forward to it.”

“Yeah. Same.” He looked back to the water. “Right,” he said, and took a deep breath of cool, damp air. “Er, be seeing you.”

“I hope so.”

He tucked his wings in close - by choice, not necessity, and not a single twinge of spasm followed - and dove into the water.

-

Adam had never seen a dead body before. Well, no, that wasn’t true, some distant and cold part of his brain corrected. He’d seen one back when Brian’s Gran had died and he and the Them had gone to the funeral. It was open-casket, but she’d had her hair and make-up done, and was dressed nice, and honestly hadn’t looked all that different than she had when she’d been alive (although admittedly, Adam had not seen her more than a few times). 

Crowley didn’t look like that. Crowley, he suspected, looked like a real dead body, a dead body that the mortician hadn’t had a crack at yet. He was limp, and colder than Adam thought he could be, and bent in ways that shouldn’t work. His skin had taken on a greyish-yellow color that reminded Adam of wax, or spoiled milk. If there had been blood, it had been washed away by the lake. Adam wasn’t sure if he preferred that or not.

It had taken a small miracle from Raziel, a long stick, and some frantic splashing into the water from Adam and Lucky, to drag the body onto an unpopulated length of shore, away from the other humans who, by all appearances, were having a nice day at the park. They hadn’t bothered to attempt to resuscitate him: he was clearly dead. Instead, Adam and Lucky had knelt on either side of him, staring down at Crowley like he might suddenly wake up and make some quip about … about swimming or something. They were both crying. Occasionally one or the other would shake the corpse hopefully, only to let their hand fall back away.

Before they’d come down here, they had hidden under the picnic table for … not long, really, Adam estimated, though considering the circumstances it had felt like an age, crouched underneath the wards while Raziel stood on top of the table and watched the sky. He’d spread his own wings - white coverts and dusty gray flight feathers - presumably to add additional protection. All the while, in spite of the pervasive feeling of safety the wards soaked him with, Adam had twisted himself into knots. Crowley was dead or at least - what was it he always said when his body died? - discorporated, and no telling what might happen to his body if they didn’t get to it. What if someone else, some random person, found it? There would be police, and -

He had wanted very badly to put all of these questions to Raziel, but the angel didn’t seem inclined to answer them at that moment, nor when he declared the coast was clear and started hustling the boys down the rest of the hill to the shore of the lake.

And then, once they’d had Crowley’s body with them, Adam hadn’t really known what to say. He’d just cried, and sniffled, and tried to keep reminding himself that Raziel had sworn it would be alright, he’d come back, they just had to wait. It was hard going, though, while he and Lucky sat sobbing over Crowley’s very lifeless, very human-looking body.

“Why isn’t he back yet?” Lucky asked quietly, holding one of Crowley’s hands in his own shaky grasp. “You said it wouldn’t be a long time. Shouldn’t he be back?”

“Soon,” said Raziel. He still had his wings out, and had mantled them over the three on the shore. Adam took Crowley’s other hand for a second, and then decided it was too unsettlingly cold and damp, and set it back on the body’s belly instead. 

Blearily, through watery and reddened eyes, he looked up at the new angel. “Didn’t know wings could look different than black and white ‘til today,” he said, dully. He wasn’t sure why he’d brought it up, but he rather suspected it was because some awful thing inside of him was screaming, and idle conversation seemed like a better option.

“Hm? Oh, yes.” Raziel looked to his wings, flexing them a little to allow a better view. “I thought the secretary bird would be rather appropriate, considering. Once it had been Created, that is.”

Adam sniffled and swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “You’re a secretary?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Lucky took a shaky breath, Crowley’s hand still held in his. “I think I’ve heard of you. Raziel you said, yeah?”

Both Adam and the angel looked surprised. “Yes,” Raziel answered slowly. “You may have. There’s a few stories.”

“My friend back home is Jewish,” Lucky went on quietly, eyes fixed on Crowley’s chest. “She told me once there was a book called ‘ _ Book of Raziel the Angel’ _ that was full of spells and like, instructions to build Noah’s Ark and stuff. She said it was given by the angel to Adam and Eve to help them once they were out of the garden, and they got it back later, even though some other angels threw it into the sea ‘cause of forbidden knowledge. S’that true?”

Raziel smiled wryly. “That’s about the sum of it, yes.”

“She was trying to buy it off Ebay.”

Raziel’s mouth twitched into a brief shape that might have been a smile on a less solemn face. “It is not, and has never been, for sale on Ebay.”

“Huh. I’ll have to tell Diana that book she has isn’t it, then.” Lucky shook Crowley’s hand again. “Nanny?” he asked, sounding very small, and very quiet.

Raziel sighed, casting his eyes upward. “It won’t be long now.”

Adam wrapped his arms around his knees and, once again, looked away from Crowley, mostly because the way his eyelids kept sliding half-open to reveal lifeless, yellow eyes was unnerving. When he looked up to Raziel instead, he saw the angel was watching him. He bit his lip. “Why’d you give your book to the humans?” he asked.

“Seemed like they needed it.” He shrugged. “And it felt like the right thing to do. They needed all the help they could get.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“Not from where it counted.”

In spite of the circumstances, Adam managed a wobbly little grin. “That’s alright then.” He thought about it some more and asked, “Is the book still on Earth?”

“Yes.”

That got Lucky’s attention too, and in a breath both boys were staring up at the angel with wide eyes. “Where?” Lucky asked hoarsely.

Raziel grinned, genuinely, and rolled a shoulder. “Somewhere safe. It’s well looked-after.”

“Does it really have magic spells in it?” Adam asked. “Actual, real magic?”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

He was about to ask what kind of spells, what sort of cool things might be in the book;  _ anything  _ like that, because that would be better than sitting here on the beach with the dead body of his godfather, hoping for a miracle. Then, someone croaked, “S’bullshit. He makes it up.”

Adam and Lucky both cried out, surprised and startled. But they didn’t jump away. Rather, the two of them fell on the wet, slightly-warmer form of Crowley which was now moving again, under  _ Crowley’s _ power. Adam wrapped his arms around Crowley’s neck and shoulders, hugging him and making sure he was really there, really alive, while Lucky was presumably doing much the same thing at chest-height. Crowley groaned. 

“Alright, give him space.” Raziel put a hand on each boy’s shoulder and pulled them back, allowing Crowley to shakily push himself up onto his elbows with another groan. “Let him get his sea legs back. Alright, Crowley?”

Crowley winced as he raised one hand to rub the back of his neck. There was a loud crackling noise, followed by one of Crowley’s consonant-heavy little expressions of discomfort, and then the demon winced and rolled his free shoulder. He sat up all the way then, knees drawn up and elbows propped on them. “Think so,” he concluded. Adam studied him as Crowley pressed his palm against his own belly, and grunted again. “Yeah. Yeah, s’alright. Bloody spleen.”

Lucky scrambled away from Raziel to sit next to the demon. “You’re sure? We could go to the hospital, or call Aziraphale -”

“ _ No _ !” Crowley spun on him, fully and obviously horrified. “No. No, Aziraphale does  _ not  _ get to know about this.”

Raziel laughed, and pulled both boys’ phones from his pocket -  _ when had he grabbed those? _ Adam wondered. “I thought that would be best, yes.”

As he took his phone back from Raziel and tucked it away, Adam scowled at Crowley. “But you almost died. Michael killed you. How are we supposed to -”

“I didn’t die, I discorporated, and it’s all fine now, right?” Crowley looked down at his hands, as if seeing them for the first time. “Yeah. Fine. Everything’s fine.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Ugh, dizzy.”

“Is that normal?” Lucky asked, hovering closer to Crowley’s face. “Is dizziness normal?”

“Very. Ngk.” For a second, Crowley squeezed his eyes shut and took a few deep breaths. Then he raised his hand, snapped once, and was suddenly clean, dry, as well-groomed as ever, and wearing a pristine pair of sunglasses. “That’s better,” he sighed, shoulders slumping.

Behind them, Raziel snorted. “Vanity.”

“Oh, yeah?” Crowley turned around and raised an eyebrow, catching himself on an outstretched hand as he wobbled. Lucky steadied him, too. “Who dressed you, Edward Murrow? It’s the 21st century, Raziel.”

The angel didn’t look in the least bit flustered by this. In fact, he smirked. “The classics never go out of style.” He folded his wings away, out of sight, and stood a bit straighter, taller if that were possible. “It looks like you’re in good hands from here. I assume that frivolous miracle is a suitable indication my assistance is no longer required?”

Crowley snorted, but then he frowned thoughtfully. “Was it … you, looking after these two? While I was, ah, unavailable?”

“It was.”

“Did they demote you?” he asked, before looked Adam and Lucky over thoroughly. “You both alright?” he asked them. 

Adam laughed, his eyes still a little wet. “Better now, yeah. Yeah, he uh, hid us from Michael, I guess?”

“Yes,” Raziel confirmed. “That was my duty. Today.” He shrugged. “Tomorrow? Who knows?”

“You probably do, you bastard.” Rocks crunching under his boots, Crowley started to struggle upright. Adam and Lucky scrambled up too, helping him on the way, Lucky’s considerable height giving him an advantage in getting a hand under the demon’s skinny shoulder to offer some extra support. Crowley was swaying on his feet as if the Earth was pitching underneath him and him alone, but seemed well enough otherwise. They were facing the angel now, and Raziel was smiling his tight, uncomfortable smile.

“I thought,” the angel said slowly, “you said I made it all up. Admitting to a Plan, hm, Crowley?”

Crowley straightened his jacket out and brushed off his sleeves, tugging the cuffs down into place. “Loose bullet points.  _ Maybe _ . I doubt it.” He waved a hand. “Probably actually just writing fanfiction or something.”

“Oh, yes,” Raziel said solemnly. “I’m very proud of my collection of Agatha Christie fanfiction.”

As one, the other three froze and stared. Crowley’s jaw even dropped. “Wh - what, no,  _ no _ , really? Really?”

“Who knows?” Raziel repeated, leaning forward and smiling even more widely, deepening the crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes. “Maybe I’m making it all up. Anyway,” he stood up straight once more, and folded his hands behind his back, “this, I believe, is where my duty ends, if you’re all well. It was a pleasure meeting you boys, Crowley -” Crowley made a noncommittal, possibly affirmative noise in response, “- but the time of my intervention has drawn to a close.”

Pointing a finger toward the sky, Crowley asked, “You going to do anything about Wank-wings up there once you get home?” Adam snorted, and Lucky giggled, still flanking Crowley solidly to keep the demon from swaying off his feet.

Raziel chuckled, and shrugged. “Goodbye,” he said, and then he vanished, without any sort of theatrics, as if he’d never been there. Even the pine needles under his feet, Adam noted, were undisturbed.

“Bloody angel of mysteries,” Crowley grumbled. He looked back down to himself. “Right, er.” Looking up, he turned first to Adam, and then to Lucky on his left. “Really sorry about that. Probably a bit traumatic. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”

Adam winced and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It was pretty awful.”

Lucky patted Crowley sympathetically on the shoulder. “That’s why I have a therapist, though. Not that I’ll ever really be able to tell him, I guess ...”

“You want to talk about it?” offered Crowley. “Er. Broadly? I’m fine now, by the way, not a scratch on me.” Lucky shook his head.

“How’d you get out of Hell so fast?” Adam asked. The three of them started walking, sort of in a line, because Crowley was even less steady on his feet than usual, and kept threatening to tip over sideways.

“Never got there. Ran into some old coworkers on the way, they did me a favor and popped me back into my old body so I could heal it up on my own.” He leaned an elbow onto Adam’s shoulder when he nearly tripped over his own feet. “So there you go.”

“You can do that?” They made it to the boardwalk portion of the trail and stumbled out of the woods together. An elderly woman and her husband stared at them for a minute before turning away, disgusted, one of them audibly muttering ‘ _ Alcohol _ ’. “Just … just fix yourself?” Lucky boggled. 

Crowley nodded, clearly feeling a bit steadier and more confident on the even footing of the boardwalk. “If you don’t discorporate completely first. Which, I did, but.” He shrugged. “Really, this body is just a … sort of like clothes? For us, anyway. It’s not really  _ me _ , it’s just something I have on.”

Adam nodded. “So you didn’t die.”

“No. Discorporated.” Crowley snorted. “Think of what happened there as like, explosive undressing. Like getting in a car accident and your shoes fly off.”

Lucky winced. “Rather not, actually. Boy, am I glad I have a therapist.” They shared a laugh over that as they wove their way back to the car park. Halfway there, Adam leaned forward a little, far enough to see Lucky.

“You know how to drive, right?”

Crowley scoffed. “I’m fine,” he said, as he stumbled to the right and bounced off Adam’s shoulder. Adam made a doubtful noise. “Just dizzy.”

Lucky shook his head ruefully, though he was laughing. “Yeah, I can drive. Can I have the keys, Nanny?”

“Maybe.” They were close to the 4Runner now, and to the surprise of both boys Crowley stopped short, wobbling on his feet but managing to stand unassisted for the brief moment before Lucky grabbed him again. He held up a finger. “Right, okay, before we get in that car, we need to come to an agreement, alright?” He waited for the boys to nod before he went on, although Adam had a fairly good idea what he was going to say. “Aziraphale cannot ever,  _ ever _ know about this.  _ Ever _ .”

Adam looked to Lucky, who was looking back with an expression Adam figured was fairly similar to his own: doubtful. Crowley snapped his fingers, not for any sort of miracle, just to get their attention. “Oi! I’ve made myself clear, yes?” They looked back at him.

“I feel like -” Adam started, but he was quickly cut off.

“I don’t care,” Crowley snapped. “If you tell Aziraphale what happened, he will - and I  _ promise _ you he will - he will go directly up to Heaven to try to punch Michael personally. And that will  _ not  _ be happening if I have anything to say about it, alright?”

The boys exchanged yet another look, this time even more uncertain. “I mean, she kind of deserves it,” Lucky said hesitantly. “She tried to - to kill you.”

Crowley shook his head a little, and swayed. “No, she didn’t. She tried to discorporate me, which is different. Not pleasant, but not the same as dying.”

“She’s trying to kill me,” Adam pointed out, reasonably. 

“She is, yes.” Crowley took a deep breath, winced, and pressed a hand to his side. “Missed a rib. Right,” he said then, opening his eyes and jumping back on track. “Anyway. Yes, Michael is trying to kill … well, several of us now, I’d imagine. But she played her hand. She’ll lay low, think of another strategy. She’s smart.”

“So why can’t Aziraphale just punch her?” Lucky asked. “He stopped a tornado.”

Crowley glowered. “And she cast Lucifer down in hand-to-hand combat. Aziraphale’s not a match for her, tornado or no. Got it?” They nodded, and Crowley took a step forward, already less wobbly than a few minutes ago. He pushed the keys into Lucky’s hand. “Fine. So long as you’re careful.”

“You know,” Adam pointed out, while Crowley staggered the rest of the way to the car, “whether or not we tell Aziraphale anything, he’ll probably notice.” A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I mean, I know you have your signature walk and everything, but this is kind of pushing it.”

Crowley had opened the rear door and was studying the opening into the backseat. If Adam had to bet, he was debating how to get in without a) crawling across the seat, or b) falling over in the attempt. Still, he looked away for a minute, the better to glare at Adam sternly. “He won’t. Don’t say a word.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. “Oh-kay,” he said, drawing out the word, his tone laden with doubt. “Whatever you say. Need a hand getting in?”

“I’m fine,” Crowley snapped, grabbing the roof handle and scrambling up into the seat. He nearly managed to sit down, too, but face-planted into the upholstery instead. Adam shook his head, and closed the door.


	25. Meet Me in the Bathroom

As Adam had totally expected, Aziraphale noticed something had happened immediately. The angel was sitting in the lobby when they walked back into the hotel, Crowley positioned between the two boys; his walking was steadier now, all of his snappy comments about Lucky taking the turns on the way home too fast aside, but he still wasn’t entirely normal. And, Adam considered, Aziraphale had known him for 6000 years, so it wouldn’t be hard to miss.   


Aziraphale had been reading when they walked in, and though he smiled when he first saw them, that dropped immediately. He even laid his book aside, undefended on one of the hotel lobby tables, to stand up and hurry over. “What happened?” he asked, putting his hands on Crowley’s shoulders, his expression radiating concern. “Something’s wrong.”

Crowley smiled. “Nah, nothing’s wrong. M’fine.”

“Something’s wrong,” Aziraphale insisted firmly. He looked the demon over from head to toe, and frowned. “What did you do? Something feels different. What happened?”

“Nothing hap -”

Aziraphale spun on Adam, first, lightning-quick. “What happened?” he asked again, in the firm, stern tone that adults sometimes used, and that might have included some kind of magic because it overrode everything in Adam’s brain that he’d promised Crowley not thirty minutes ago.

“Crowley died but not really? What’s it - corporation or something?” He grimaced, and looked to Crowley miserably. “Sorry.”

Crowley didn’t look happy, though he also didn’t look particularly shocked. He groaned. “Come on, Aziraphale, look what you did -”

“You  _ discorporated _ ?” Adam had heard things in the past about avenging angels, cloaked in blazing fury and righteousness, and when he’d been younger and more fanciful he’d tried to reconcile that idea with Aziraphale. It had never worked back then, but now for the second time during this trip he was once again realizing that Aziraphale apparently had  _ very  _ well-hidden depths. Nothing about him visibly  _ changed _ , per se, but somehow as soon as he’d heard the truth he seemed taller, broader, and slightly … radiant. He gave the impression of towering over Crowley, which was not helped when Crowley appeared to slink down a little. “ _ What happened _ ?” Aziraphale demanded again, and this time there was no getting out of it.

Or, at least, Adam hadn’t thought so. Crowley, however, had other plans. “I’ll tell you later.” He raised his hands, placating. “I promise. But I also promise I’m fine now, better than fine. Would I lie to you?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Who did it?” he asked tightly. He looked away from Crowley, casting his gaze over Lucky and Adam, and Adam clenched his mouth shut and did his best not to cower. “I insist someone tell me this instant.”

“Michael,” Crowley said quickly, before Lucky or Adam could get themselves into any more trouble. “It was Michael. But the situation is dealt with. There was … Well, a lot happened.” Behind his glasses, Crowley’s eyes flicked quickly back and forth between the boys on either side of him. “Aziraphale, listen, I promise I will tell you everything, but not here. Or now.” He raised an eyebrow. “We’re in the lobby of a Doubletree, for the love of … someone. Something. Crepes, if you’d like.”

“Stop trying to distract me.” Aziraphale crossed his arms. “I know you, you old serpent. I know what you’re doing.”

“And I’ve got a very excellent reason for it,” Crowley replied smoothly. “I swear I do. But right now, it’s er, what, about lunchtime, yeah? And these two haven’t eaten.”

Lucky checked his watch. “It’s actually closer to dinner, really. If you wanna be technical.”

“Right. So let’s feed the kids -”

“We’re eighteen,” Lucky pointed out.

Crowley went on, “Let’s feed the infants, and then we can talk, ah, in private.” He glanced at the boys again. 

Quietly, Adam said, “I’m not hungry.” It was true. There was something rolling around in his belly, but it wasn’t any kind of gnawing hunger. He recognized the feeling, though he couldn’t put a name to it. He didn’t like it. “I …” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m gonna use the loo,” he said, and turned on his heel to head for the bathroom in the lobby before anyone had a chance to object. 

Behind him, faintly, through the rising rush of blood in his ears, he heard Lucky say, “I’ll go with him,” and sneakers pounding on the tile. 

He didn’t remember entering the bathroom, or going into one of the stalls. He was too overcome, too filled with a boiling rage. He slammed the lock on the door shut and sat on the toilet, putting his head in his hands and forcing deep breaths through himself. In his head, faintly, he could hear,  _ You can fix it. Make it happen. _ Over and over, on a loop.

He whined and ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

“Adam?” It was Lucky, but Adam wasn’t really interested in answering.  _ You can fix it, make it happen _ , said the thing inside him, and he breathed again, slowly in and out, count to four and breathe in, count to four and breathe out …

“Adam. Hey.” There was a rattle as the stall door next to Adam’s shut and latched. He had closed his eyes, but he opened them for a second, just enough to see Lucky’s shoes under the partition to his right. “Adam?”

Adam moaned. “Go away.”  _ You can fix it, make it happen _ . 

“No. No, I won’t. What’s wrong?”

“ _ Nothing _ .”

There was a disbelieving snort in response to that, but silence too, and Adam took the opportunity to take a few more breaths. Lucky shuffled his shoes on the tiles. “You wanna talk about it?”

_ Not really, _ Adam wanted to say. Well, a part of him wanted to say. But, he realized while he stared at the toilet paper dispenser, a rather larger part of him wanted to say: “This fucking sucks. I hate it.” He balled his hands up into fists, and tried to focus on deep breaths, slow breaths. “I hate it that there’s nothing I can do, I just have to wait, I hate that Crowley and Aziraphale have to help so much, I hate  _ all of this _ !” He slammed his fist against the partition. A dark part of him was hoping that Lucky would get spooked, or just uncomfortable, and leave. Instead, Adam watched his shoes rock back and forth onto his heels.

“Yep. It fucking sucks.” He didn’t seem to be inclined to say more than that. Adam glared at the shoes. 

“I could fix it, I think,” Adam admitted, quiet and low. “I feel like … like if I really wanted to, I could just, you know.  _ Make it all go away _ .”

Lucky hummed. “Sounds ominous. Magic power stuff?”

“Yeah. Yeah, magic power stuff.”

“Hm.” There was a long time where Adam waited, still glowering at Lucky’s feet, his hands clenched tight enough that his joints had started to ache. He wasn’t going to say anything, he decided. He was going to wait. See what Lucky said. 

Partially because he  _ knew  _ he couldn’t do magic power stuff. Well, he  _ wouldn’t _ , anyway. He took a few more deep breaths, and the chanted  _ You can fix it, make it happen _ , died away a little more, so faint now that he had trouble focusing on it over the whirr of the air conditioner. He swallowed, like that might force it down the rest of the way into his belly and out of his mind.

He didn’t want to do any of that, and the thought of it made him sick, but he’d been so angry -

_ Crowley had died _ . He’d died, willingly, defending Adam, who had done nothing but run away. He hadn’t tried to help, hadn’t tried to stop Michael, hadn’t even tried to peel her off Crowley. He’d just run, and sure, maybe Crowley had used some kind of magic something to make sure that happened, but Adam felt angry that he’d let it. 

“I don’t think,” Lucky said slowly from the other side of the partition, startling Adam out of his reverie, “you should use anything I can’t use. Human stuff. Seems like it’s playing with fire, so to speak. Maybe literally. I dunno.”

“Yeah.” His head drooped, and he ran his hands through his blonde curls once, before letting his left hand drop and leaving his right hand tangled in his hair, tugging at the snarls. “Prob’ly right.” He let his other hand fall and sat up, throwing his head back to stare at the tile ceiling. “You know I’m done not doing  _ anything _ , though. That’s it. I’m done. I don’t care what they say.”

“Mm-hm. I agree.” He heard scuffling, and a moment later Lucky’s face popped over the top of the partition. “If we wait for those two to come up with a plan,” he said, jerking his finger toward the door, “I think we’ll all get killed before they figure out whether they want to take care of it before or after dinner.”

In spite of his frustration, Adam snorted. “You really do know them, disguises or not.”

Lucky grinned a little. “Yeah. Anyway, I think you’re right - we need to do something. What are you thinking?”

Adam frowned. “I don’t know how to kill Michael. S’far as I know, the only things that can kill angels is hellfire, an’ I don’t think I can do that.” He shrugged. “I know what to do about demons, though.”

“Oh yeah?” Lucky looked a little suspicious. “Is it some Antichrist thing?”

“Nah. But I gotta get it first; we need Holy Water.”

Lucky brightened. “Oh! There’s a church down the street I saw when I was driving home - you think they might have it?” He looked away as he thought about it a bit more. “I didn’t pay attention to what kind - not sure if it was Catholic or whatever but it looked like maybe it could be? I dunno. Do only Catholics have Holy Water?”

“I think it’s pretty non-denominational. Any kind of blessed water works. I think.” Adam spoke more quickly now, the plan formulating in his mind. “But yeah, if I get some Holy Water, and then we can summon Hastur like Crowley said, I can throw it on him and like, kill him. Permanently.” He swallowed. “Which, um.”

Lucky turned his attention back to Adam and cocked his head, still frowning. “You’d be alright with that?”

Adam shifted his weight around a little on the toilet seat, uncomfortable. “Well. I mean, he’s a Duke of Hell. Like, he’s pretty bad. Um. So -”

“Hang on.” Lucky held up a finger and took a breath before he started. “I mean, okay, obviously the answer is no, so that’s one thing, but also, I had a thought: Crowley was gonna help us with the summoning, and isn’t Crowley a demon, too?” He spoke more quickly as Adam’s eyes widened with realization. “I mean, water splashes. I guess we could try to aim it, but I doubt Crowley would  _ let us _ use it, honestly, and then even if we did it on the sly we could still splash him, too.” He grimaced. “Maybe only a little, but I dunno how much it takes.”

“Me neither. I don’t think very much.” Adam slumped. “So that’s it for that plan, I guess.”

“You wanna know what I think?” When Adam looked back up, Lucky was watching him with an intensely solemn expression. “I think there’s stuff about this on the internet. Gotta be, right? You can find  _ anything _ on the internet.” 

Hesitant, Adam replied, “Yeah …”

Speaking quickly, he went on, “So listen, we have to protect you, obviously, but I think we need to watch out for Crowley and Aziraphale, too. And I think that if Crowley helps us with the summoning, that’s only gonna put him into more danger, so maybe it’s …” He paused. “Maybe it’s better to leave him out.”

Adam blinked. “I don’t know how to summon demons, though.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Lucky pulled his phone loose from his pocket. “I got it. I’ll … I’ll look stuff up, pretend I’m studying with Crowley for their plan, but like, I’ll just get him to tell me what’s legit and what’s not. Once I have it figured out, or at least saved in downloads, you and I can sneak off somehow, I dunno, and kill this Hastur guy on our own. Keep those two out of harm’s way.”

He looked up at Lucky from under his tousled bangs for a while, the other boy still leaning over the top of the stall partition and looking down to him. “You think that’s safe?”

“No. But I think it has a  _ better  _ chance of not getting anybody killed.”

“Yeah.” Adam took a breath and scrubbed the knees of his jeans with his hands. “Alright. So … so you’re gonna get intel from Crowley, I’ll get Holy Water.” He furrowed his brow. “How am I gonna do that?”

“Well …” Lucky drummed his fingers on the partition. “Wait, I got it. I mean, it’s been a long day, right?”

Unbidden, the image of Crowley’s dead body on the shore of the beach flashed across Adam’s mind’s eye, and he winced. “Yeah.”

Lucky shrugged. “So say you just … need some time. Go for a walk. I mean, Aziraphale will probably follow you, let’s be real, but if you can slip him and go into the church really quick …”

“Yeah.” Adam nodded slowly, a daring little bloom of hope leaking in. “Yeah, you know that might work. And if you distract Crowley -”

“Exactly.” The air conditioner hummed on again, breaking the thoughtful silence that followed. “You sure you’re okay? You wanna talk about it?”

“Ugh.” Adam put his elbows on his knees, the better to steady himself as he buried his face in his hands. “I know Crowley says he’s okay, and I know they don’t work like humans but like. That was. Awful. Seeing him like that. I know he wasn’t dead, but …” he trailed off for a moment. “You think he’s really okay?”

When he looked back up, he found the other boy staring off into the middle distance. “I was gonna ask you the same thing,” Lucky said quietly, almost whispering, like he was afraid they might be overheard. “He was acting weird after, don’t you think? Not like, the dizziness and stuff but … what was all that about old coworkers? And what was all that with Aziraphale?” He looked down to Adam, who had been nodding along as he spoke. “You noticed that, right? He  _ wanted _ to tell Aziraphale something, but not in front of us. Something had to have happened. But I dunno. I feel like it … probably wasn’t bad.” He shrugged expansively and said again, “I dunno, just a feeling.”

“No,” Adam said quickly, eagerly. “No, I noticed it too. And I was wondering about the ‘old coworkers’ thing. What demon would … why would a demon help him? And then Raziel with us? I’ve  _ never _ seen them work with anybody else. It’s always just been him and Aziraphale.”

“Right. There’s something weird about it. I dunno.” He watched Adam for a second. “But did you think he seemed like … weirdly happy, for someone who had died?”

“Yeah. Which like,  _ really _ makes me wonder who the old coworkers are. I mean,” he gestured, “Michael  _ dropped him _ from like, really high up, and he  _ died _ . And he comes back like, ‘oh, don’t worry, I’m fine, everything’s fine, all’s well’. So either he’s lying,” Adam concluded, with Lucky nodding in agreement, “or something  _ so good _ happened that the dying was like, not that big of a deal.”

Lucky breathed out through his nose. “Which makes perfect sense. But what happened? What usually happens when they die or whatever?”

“No idea. Neither of them would ever talk about it with me.” He considered telling Lucky about how he’d met Aziraphale - sharing a body with Madame Tracy - and then thought better of it. Maybe later. “If I had to guess, I’d say they go home. Or, you know. Back to wherever used to be home.”

“Yeah. Heaven or Hell. I got it.” He looked at Adam and made a face. “Maybe Hell really isn’t that bad?”

“Don’t think that’s it.” Adam shook his head. “But  _ something _ happened. We’re gonna have to get it out of him. You think it might have been about me?” He balked. “Not to sound self-centered or anything but, you know. All things considered.”

Lucky chuckled. “I get it, yeah. I mean, maybe. He did say Michael had been dealt with for now or whatever. And I guess Raziel said the same thing. Maybe that was all that it was?” He didn’t look like he believed it even as he said it. “I doubt it, honestly, but I dunno.”

“Me too.” Adam groaned and stood up with a stretch, trying to work some of the tension out of his shoulders and back. “We ought to head out there. They’re gonna be suspicious.”

“Oh for sure.” He heard Lucky hop down from his perch on the toilet, and the two of them stepped out of the stalls together. Out of habit, Adam stopped to wash his hands at the sink. “You don’t think they’re listening at the door, do you?”

“Dunno. Maybe. Probably not - it’d look weird, listening at the door of a public bathroom in a hotel.”

“Good point, but when has that stopped them before?” he asked, and Lucky chuckled in agreement.

Fortunately, Aziraphale and Crowley had not been listening at the door. Rather, when Adam and Lucky emerged, the two of them were seated on one of the couches in the lobby, both leaned forward with their heads bent together in quiet, earnest conversation. Crowley’s expression was always hard to gauge with the glasses, but still, he didn’t look unhappy. Maybe not happy, either, but … more confused than anything.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, looked pleased as punch. Which was  _ weird _ , Adam thought, but all the tells were there, down to the way he kept patting his own knees and fidgeting side-to-side. Adam had seen him look like that before, about baked goods and old books and other things in that vein, which made it all the more strange, because Adam assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that Crowley was filling him in on the events of his day.

It didn’t last: as soon as Crowley noticed them, which didn’t take long, he stopped talking, and both turned to look at the boys. Lucky, blessedly, took the lead, and headed over toward the couch, plopping down next to Crowley without much fanfare. If Crowley or Aziraphale had noticed how long the two of them had been in the bathroom, or thought it odd, neither said a word about it.

“So, Nanny.” Lucky pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I figured I might want to, you know, study up for tonight. Kind of get the gist of what we’re doing with this whole summoning stuff. Here’s this thing I found on Reddit -”

Aziraphale cut in. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. It’s been a bit of a day for you all, I’m given to understand.” Calmly, he looked from Lucky and Crowley to Adam. “Is that alright?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah. Um. I’m … I think I need a little while to clear my head. Was thinking I might go for a walk around, anyway.”

The two immortals shared a look, but Adam didn’t give them a chance to speak. He started walking for the door, just as Lucky swooped in to show Crowley something on his phone and say, urgently, “So I was wondering about this part here, with the triangle -”

Adam heard Crowley say, “No, no, that’s all wrong, if you do it like that you’re going to end up with something full of teeth. You won’t like it …” He also heard the precise, rhythmic clicking of Aziraphale’s shoes on the tile as the angel started to trail him out of the hotel and into the street.

He’d expected Aziraphale to hang back, and was relieved to see he’d been right. Crowley would have been right next to him, wheedling him to talk about it, bring it out into the open, but Aziraphale was different. Adam had said he needed time to clear his head, and Aziraphale was going to give it to him. For that, Adam was grateful.

The town was small, and the church was visible from the street in front of the hotel: the spire poked up among the buildings even though it was overshadowed by the towering mountains around. With his hands in his pockets, Adam slouched off toward the church, and thought.

There were about 2 million movies in the world about how to banish demons, or exorcise them, and Adam had certainly seen his share. But there was nothing about keeping unwanted angels away - at least not that he’d ever seen. Angels were supposed to be good, and helpful, and people generally  _ wanted _ them to show up. He wondered about that show that had been on telly years ago, Supernatural, because he sort of vaguely recalled people at school talking about it and remembered that some of the angels were bad in that. Had there been anti-angel defenses in that show? Had they been real?

Maybe Lucky would get something out of Crowley. Hopefully he would. 

A car whirred past and Adam jerked to a stop, startled out of his reverie. He was close to the church now, and had completely neglected to try to shake Aziraphale. As subtly as he could, he glanced back to see how far away the angel was, and was surprised that he … wasn’t there. 

_ A-ha _ . Emboldened by the fact that Aziraphale was not directly behind him, Adam turned around a little more and finally caught sight of the angel, who had stopped in front of a bakery and coffee shop to study the window display. Perfect. Adam turned back around, picked up his pace, and ducked into the church.

He’d been in churches before, of course. His mother and father had been very keen on raising him to be a Good Anglican Boy, although their post-service critiques of the finer points of Father Wilson’s sermons had sort of rubbed the shine off of that particular apple. That, and being the Antichrist, he supposed. It was a major failing in a Good Anglican Boy, being the Antichrist. Still, his parents had taken him to church every weekend until he turned about 13, at which point it became clear that he was not particularly interested in pursuing a life in the church, and they had announced with no small amount of relief that if he wanted, he could take Sunday mornings to lie in, instead.

This church wasn’t anything like the church he’d gone to back home. The church in England was old, and stone, and full of stained glass. This church had drywall and a wooden ceiling and big, airy windows along the roofline that afforded a beautiful view of the mountains and the sky. He supposed that to some, that might be better than stained glass, anyway. 

_ Right _ , he thought, shaking himself and walking toward the front of the church. Holy Water, that’s what he was here for. He was alone in the church, and the lights were dimmed, although the natural sunlight streaming through the windows kept the interior of the place fairly bright. In spite of the secretive nature of his mission, he was grateful for the light, considering he had no idea where the Holy Water would be. His stomach twisted a little and he thought,  _ If there is any _ .

At home, the Holy Water had always been kept in a font to the left of the altar. Here, there was just a pulpit there, and a little door, presumably for an electrical closet if the wires running in and out of it were any indication. Probably not the ideal place to store any kind of water, Holy or not. He sighed, looked around the altar the rest of the way and, coming up empty, slumped down onto a pew to stare at his sneakers.

Outside, the traffic noise was dulled. It was quiet enough that Adam could hear his own breathing, and so he heaved a sigh and leaned forward, resting his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to do,” he muttered, to no one in particular. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m putting everyone in danger, and I don’t know what to do.”

In spite of his own occult parentage, Adam had never really had much of a connection to churches. He’d never heard anything, or seen anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t today, either: just the oppressive silence of the church and the gentle hum of traffic outside. He looked miserably up to the cross on the wall, and to the painting of the man beside it - presumably Jesus - who looked nothing like the man he’d met at Christmas five years ago. “No tips, huh?” The painting didn’t answer.

He heard the gentle click of the latch to the door opening, and turned to look. Aziraphale stood in the threshold, tense and drawn, but as soon as he saw Adam he relaxed. “Ah, there you are.” Obligingly, Adam budged over in the pew and made way for the angel. For a minute, it was just the two of them sitting in silence. 

At length, quietly, Aziraphale asked, “How  _ are _ you, Adam?”

It was funny: he hadn’t felt like crying before that question. But that one simple question bowled him over, and next thing he knew he was leaned up against the angel, sniffling and wiping his eyes before the tears could leak out. Aziraphale didn’t say anything in particular, just put his arm around Adam’s shoulders, patted him, and murmured, “There, there.”

“I should have gone home,” he said, miserably. “Or never come.”

“Hm. Actually, I rather disagree with you on that count.” From a pocket, he produced a (tartan, obviously) handkerchief. “Here you are.”

He rubbed his eyes and then his nose with the cloth, and looked up a little, just enough to see Aziraphale’s face, although he also tried to move as little as possible. Aziraphale had never much been one for hugs, nor had Crowley, but they were both rather good at giving them. Maybe it was an angel thing, fallen or otherwise.

“Did Crowley tell you what happened?”

Aziraphale nodded slowly. “He did.”

Adam shuddered, and leaned in closer. “It was awful. I - I know it’s not the same for you guys, but seeing -” The angel cut him off with a squeeze around the shoulders. 

“What it’s like for us,” Aziraphale said, looking away from Adam and up to the cross, “is immaterial for you, honestly.  _ Your  _ experience is the one that matters to you, and to your feelings.” His jaw set for a moment as he looked at the crucifix and then, just like that, the look vanished. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Adam considered that. “Not … not today,” he concluded. “As long as he’s okay, we can talk about it later. He’s okay, right?”

Aziraphale smiled gently. “I wouldn’t have left him if he weren’t. And neither would you have, I think.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He snuggled in again, and the angel’s arm wrapped around his shoulders a bit more tightly. Protective. “This has to stop, Aziraphale.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“And I can figure out Hastur, I think - Crowley’s helping us - but I don’t know what to do about Michael. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone wanting to stop an angel.”

“It’s happened,” Aziraphale replied, cryptically. “And there certainly are ways to do it. But I’m not sure any of them are good ways.”

Adam looked down to the blue polyester carpet on the floor. “Then what do we do?” he asked, feeling very small, and not at all like the cavalier eighteen year-old boy he felt like he ought to be. “What’s the plan?”

Aziraphale sat in thoughtful silence for a moment, and then sighed. “I don’t have one, I’m afraid, and I’m sure Crowley doesn’t either. But perhaps something will occur to us over time.”

Adam’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “Do you think we have time?”

“A bit, probably.” He looked down at Adam. “Dear boy, even after we stopped Armageddon - well, after you did, but you understand - they didn’t come for us right away. We angels are more … deliberate. And with her recent attempt being a failure, and the one before that being a failure, I doubt very much that Michael will see fit to move again until she’s extremely sure she has a better plan. Which means we have time.”

“We just have to think faster than her.”

“Precisely.” He removed his arm, instead letting his hands fold in his lap, and leaned down to better look Adam in the eyes. “And to that end, I think it’s a very good thing we have you and Lucky to help. All the time I’ve been on Earth, Adam, and humans have always been the most creative creatures there are. So take a breath and think about it. You don’t have to decide right now - I’m sure Michael won’t.”

Adam’s lips wobbled into a semblance of a grin. “I did make up a way to stop the end of the world. ‘Course, I was eleven.”

“And you’re eighteen now. Imagine how much more you’ve had time to learn and come up with.”

Adam nodded once, but then his face fell. “It just seemed so much easier then. I guess I had my powers, and I don’t now. But even still, stopping the entire end of the world seemed so simple. This is  _ complicated _ .”

“Mhm.”

Adam looked up. “Could you get your flaming sword?”

“I cannot. And if I could, I would not give it to you for this.” There was a sparkle in his eye as he went on, “Adam, I know this is a daunting threat, and rightfully so, but all hope is not lost, and I certainly don’t think violence is the answer. As with everything, I believe you’ll just need to be creative.”

His eyes narrowed. “What’d Crowley tell you? What happened to him?”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to talk about it today,” replied Aziraphale primly, and although Adam was tempted to push, the angel’s tone brooked no argument. “Best not.” He stood up, tugged his coat and tie back into place, and looked down at Adam expectantly. “I was thinking we ought to get back, before the other two get worried. And I’m sure you’re hungry.”

That spurred Adam into action, and he pushed himself up from the pew and onto his feet. “We have to get ready for tonight, too.”

“Not tonight, remember?” Adam fell in alongside his godfather, the two of them walking out of the church in a slow lock-step. “It’s been an eventful day. Best to take a breather, I think.”

“I know. But maybe the faster we act, the weaker Hastur’ll be.”

“Perhaps.” 

They were near the doors now, and though Adam was trying to be subtle about it, he still hadn’t managed to catch sight of any Holy Water. But then, just as he was about to give up hope, he caught sight of a font, similar to the one back home while somehow being distinctly  _ American _ , right by the doors. He paused. “Aziraphale?” The angel turned. His hands were clasped in front of him, and that, combined with the politely expectant expression, made Adam feel like he ought to be ready to deliver a book report. Instead, he swallowed hard and said, “Um. Could I er.” He looked over his shoulder, to the cross on the wall at the front of the church. “Could I have - ?”

He didn’t need to say anything else. Aziraphale nodded, and opened the door. “I’ll be just outside. Please do call if anything happens.” He stepped through, and pulled the door shut behind him with another quiet click.

Right. Adam took a step toward the Holy Water font, ensured that yes, there was indeed water in it, and then nearly swore. He’d forgotten anything to put it in. He bit back a frustrated noise and started looking around again, this time for anything that he might use to store a little bit of liquid in.

And then he saw it: up front, just under the altar - he’d probably been too upset to notice it before. One of those blender bottles, maybe left behind by the priest, or a member of the congregation. Adam started for it, swiftly but quietly, and just as he was kneeling to put his hand out to grab the thing he happened to look up at the cross and the painting. 

He was stealing from a church. Rather Antichristly, that. Uncertain, he paused, and then crossed himself. “Sorry. It’s in self-defense,” he said, possibly to God, maybe to Yeshua, but likely more accurately to the abandoned church. “I’ll send them a donation later,” he added, just in case, and then picked up the bottle and padded back toward the font. He unscrewed the lid and was relieved to find the pale purple bottle empty, though it did smell faintly of lemonade. No matter - he was pretty sure scented Holy Water would work just the same. Cautiously, he dipped the lip of the bottle into the font, and scooped out a bit - just a cup, which he hoped would be enough - before screwing the lid back on tightly and making sure the cap was firmly in place. Then, he tucked the bottle into the waistband of his jeans, just in the small of his back, and stepped outside. 

“Alright?” Aziraphale asked, and Adam nodded. He waited for the angel to start walking, and carefully matched his pace so as not to get ahead. “Very good. Now, how would you feel about a rather nicer dinner? The manicurist told me about a restaurant just around the corner …”


	26. Phone a Friend

The recommended restaurant was a nice place - a little more upscale than anything Adam had thought he’d packed for* - and specialized in local meats and their preparation. Adam had never had bison before, and Lucky admitted to never having tried elk. Crowley, as usual, didn’t eat, but after Aziraphale lamented not having had well-prepared elk in such a long time, the demon ordered that entree himself and just pushed the plate over to Aziraphale when the food arrived. It was a routine Adam had seen many times before, well-worn, and seemed to make both of them happy in its mutual benefits, that being the joy of seeing Azirpahale happy for Crowley, and an extra entree, for Aziraphale.

[*  _ Accurately. He certainly had  _ not _ packed the button-down shirt and slacks, but Aziraphale’s manicurist had also mentioned a dress code and in spite of still being a bit tired from the exertions of two days ago, the angel had not seen any reason to let something like a dress code stop him from excellent regional food. _ ]

Rachael called Lucky near the end of the meal, and he excused himself to the restroom to finish the conversation before he returned. “What’s that about?” Adam asked, half of a noodle hanging out of his mouth. He slurped it up. He’d been surprised that in spite of all that had happened over the past few days, he was starving, and he’d eaten both an appetizer and an entree with gusto. He was hoping for dessert, as well. 

“Storms!” Lucky announced. “Of course. She wanted to know if we felt up for going back to chasing tomorrow. I uh …” He paused. “I said yes, but I can call her back if you need more time.”

Adam shrugged. “It’s fine,” he said, and Lucky relaxed. “I’m alright.”

“Where?” Crowley asked. He was leaned back in his chair, espresso cup in hand. He had been staring into the black drink, totally silent, for the past five minutes.

“North,” Lucky answered. He looked down to his plate, shook his head, and pushed the remainder of his dinner over to Adam, who tucked in without complaint. “Northeast, really. Up near the Nebraska and South Dakota lines.”

Crowley frowned. “Bit of a drive, that.”

“Yeah, she said about six hours. The plan is to leave around six tomorrow morning, get there in time to fine-tune our location in case we need to move a little east or west or whatever.”

“Early wake-up,” Crowley sighed, still studying his espresso. “Was looking forward to a good kip tonight.”

“You look forward to a good kip every night,” Aziraphale pointed out good-naturedly. 

Crowley’s eyes flicked up just long enough to spare the angel a quick glare. “I’ve had a  _ day _ , Aziraphale.” He frowned when Aziraphale reached over to pat him on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Of course, dear. As far as sleeping arrangements tonight, though, I was thinking -”

While the two supernatural entities bickered over who could lay claim to the bulk of the sleeper sofa, Lucky leaned over closer to Adam. “You sure you’re alright?” he asked, voice low. 

Adam considered it around his mouthful of food, and then nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I am actually. Aziraphale and I talked earlier.”

“Good,” Lucky sighed, his face relaxing into a smile. “You learn anything interesting? Not that you should have, I mean, obviously the first priority is to -”

“I know.” Adam cut him off with a shake of his head. “I get it. Thanks. But no, not really, honestly. I remembered when I was younger, Aziraphale had this flaming sword, and I asked if maybe we could use that, but he said no.”

“Where does he keep it? We could see if -”

“Dunno. Don’t think he does keep it.” Adam shrugged. “We’ll have to think of something. What about you - you talked to Crowley?” He paused, and as one the two of them looked to the demon, who had leaned forward, one elbow on the table, the better to use a napkin to demonstrate some point about mattress length, relative height, and requisite angles for sprawling. “How’s he?”

“Something weird definitely happened. He’s  _ fine _ . Like, finer than fine.” Lucky shuddered. “If I never had to see him like that again, though, it’d be too soon.”

With a fervent nod, Adam said, “Agreed.”

They allowed that thought a moment of quiet consideration, Adam picking at the remains of his own plate, as well as Lucky’s, before Lucky said, “Anyway, I think I have it down. Do you know it’s actually not that hard to summon a demon, if you know their name and their sigil?”

Adam recalled the one time he had accidentally summoned a demon before with the Them. “No,” he lied. “Did you get Hastur’s sigil?”

“Yeah. Drew it in my notepad.” Lucky prodded at his phone where it sat on the table. “Did you get the … you know?”

“Mhm. It’s in a bottle I hid in the room.”

“I think one of us should keep it with us all the time. Just in case.”

“Yeah, I agree. We just have to be careful,” Adam said quietly, with a significant look toward Crowley, “to keep it away from him.”

Lucky winced. “Absolutely, yeah.” Across the table, the other two were winding down their argument and were pouring another glass of wine in preparation for dessert. “Plan tomorrow while we’re driving?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Aziraphale looked up from the glass he was carefully filling. “What does, Adam? I’m afraid the legal drinking age in this country is -”

Adam grinned. “Nah, no, we were talking about dessert. I think I saw a little menu or something, might have mentioned peanut butter chocolate something.”

“ _ Did it _ ?” Aziraphale began looking around the table, under discarded plates and silverware and napkins. “I hadn’t seen. I wonder if the young lady took it - let me get her, just a moment.”

“Hope you’re not expecting to share,” Crowley said dryly.

Lucky shrugged. “I was thinking maybe just a bite -”

“You like having two hands, yes? Both attached to your body and not run through with a fork?” As if to demonstrate his point, Crowley lifted his unused dinner fork off the table and held it aloft, tines-up, turning it slowly in his fingers. He looked to Lucky and raised an eyebrow. “I assume the answer is yes.”

Lucky blinked. “He -” He glanced to Aziraphale, who was talking genially with the waitress. “He wouldn’t.”

Crowley set the fork back down and picked up his espresso again, murmuring, “Oh, I dunno. Try him.”

-

The next day’s early drive brought more flat grasslands, with the Rockies fading away into the skyline behind them. Adam was only a bit sad to watch them go, but it was hard to pay attention to that too long, because all throughout the morning, in between spates of looking at Baron and weather predictions and talking about plans for the afternoon, he and Lucky were texting furiously.

They would summon Hastur alone, they decided. Less chance of Crowley getting splashed if they had to use what they’d termed ‘Plan H’. The tricky part, Lucky assured Adam, would not be the actual summoning and subsequent banishing of a Duke of Hell (although Adam had his doubts about that), but slipping away from Aziraphale and Crowley for long enough to do so without getting caught.

‘ _ they did let us alone in the bathroom yesterday _ ,’ Lucky pointed out, somewhere around the Nebraska state line. 

Adam replied, ‘ _ Well yea, but that was a bathroom. Not sure we can summon him in a bathroom _ .’ Lucky had asked why not then, and Adam hadn’t replied right away. Eventually, he just looked across the backseat at the other boy and shrugged helplessly. Lucky grinned and sat back in his seat, the better to look out of the window. 

Might as well follow suit, Adam thought. He considered trying to sleep, but discarded that idea straight away, on the basis that he had so much running through his head, and such an uneasy bundle of nerves in his gut, that sleep would be futile. And anyway, Rachael put an end to any further napping considerations when she asked, “So what’d you two get up to, yesterday?”

“Oh.” Adam blinked, and looked forward. Rachael had turned around in her seat and was watching him, calm and observant. He waved a hand. “Um. We went for a hike.”

“Did you?” Noel glanced up at the rearview and caught Adam’s eye for a second, before returning his attention to the road. “Whereabouts? I’m kind of familiar with the park.”

“Uh, there was a trail overlooking Blue Lake.”

Adam could see the side of Noel’s face brighten happily in the mirror. “Oh yeah? You went up the one that looks over the lake, not the one around it, right?”

“Er. A bit of both. Definitely up to the overlook, and a bit on the boardwalk.”

“Good.” Noel drummed his fingers on the wheel, while Rachael turned away, back to her computer. “The boardwalk’s alright, not bad really, but for the view of the whole lake? You can’t beat the overlook. Beautiful, wasn’t it? It was a nice, clear day for it.”

Adam swallowed. “Yeah. Very pretty.”

“It’s a hell of a ways up -” Adam bit the inside of his lip to keep from wincing, “- but that view is worth it. You take any pictures?”

“A few,” he said, noncommittal. He looked over to Lucky and scowled when the other boy failed to turn away from the window.

“I’d love to see them later. It’s been a few years since I was up that way. Thought about going myself, yesterday, just to see the old trail, but, well. You know how it is.”

Rachael snickered. “You mean you let that guy at the spa talk you into a huge lunch and then fell asleep by the pool, is what you mean.”

Noel scowled, and then sniffed. “So what if I did? S’my right.”

“Yes, it sure is. Not criticizing, just saying.” She looked over to him. “Who was that guy, anyway? You were talking to him for a while.”

“Some tourist.” Noel shrugged. “I think he was British or something. Why Colorado, he never said, just mentioned something about seeing the sights.” He sighed. “Who knows. Takes all sorts, I guess.” A frown crept onto his features then. “Man, he knew a lot about books, though.” Adam blinked as realization dawned on him, and then quickly covered his mouth with his hand and stared pointedly out of the window. He didn’t dare look to see what Lucky was doing for fear of laughing, but he suspected it would be something very similar. “Anyway, how’s the radar looking?”

“Not bad. I think we should hang a little more to the west.” She quickly followed with, “What kind of books did you talk about? I didn’t know you read.”

“I read.”

“I know you  _ can _ read -”

“I  _ read _ .” He grumbled. “Just finished a book before we left, s’a matter of fact. The latest Tom Clancy novel.”

“Ah, I see. Makes perfect sense.” She grinned. “Did you talk to your new friend about it?”

Noel sighed. “Tried to. He hadn’t ever heard of Tom Clancy though, can you believe it? Said he mostly dealt in antiques.” On the opposite side of the back seat, Lucky was struck by a coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like stifled laughter. Adam bit down on the inside of his lip again and stared out the window for all he was worth. Maybe if he counted the cows …

Blessedly, the conversation died down, and he gratefully settled back into the relative peace of the drive. Noel had turned the radio on to some quiet country music, which Adam had come to feel was not actually all that bad. The lyrics to some of the songs, when he caught them, were interesting sometimes. He’d spent the better part of a half hour early that morning wondering if the man from the one song had ever figured out how to cook so his kids didn’t have to eat burnt food. He doubted it.

Lucky texted a few more times, mostly about how to shake Aziraphale and Crowley when the time came to try the summoning. They ran through a variety of scenarios, but faltered every time on the whole ‘supernatural powers’ issue. By noon, neither of them were any the wiser about how to summon Hastur without the other two catching on, and time was running out. 

And in the meantime, stormclouds were gathering to the west. Rachael pointed them out, and also noted that the CAPE over their initial target region was looking fairly favorable. “We’ll stay well away,” she said, glancing back at Adam while she explained her predictions on where might be best to watch the storm. “Sound okay, today?”

Adam was nodding, even as Noel grumbled, “We’re always supposed to stay well away. I’m not eager to repeat the other day.”

Lucky glanced at Adam. “Not sure I disagree. I’m cool with staying a respectful distance away.”

“And I haven’t seen any other chasers yet,” Noel added. “If the storm looks this good, I wonder why?”

Rachael hummed thoughtfully while she prodded at her computer. “There’s another system to the south, over Oklahoma. They might have gone that way, but I dunno, to me it doesn’t look nearly as good.” She shrugged. “I can text a few friends, see if they’re in the area.”

“Nah. If we see ‘em, we see ‘em,” he concluded. 

They did not see ‘em. Around noon, they stopped in a little town; barely more than a gas station and a general store surrounded by a handful of houses. They grabbed lunch at the general store, and posted up in the gas station parking lot while Rachael re-checked her computer, and Adam and Lucky each ate an ice cream cone. It was oppressively hot and humid, which was a good sign, even if there hadn’t been a looming cumulonimbus tower to the southwest.

“It’s developing a meso,” Rachael murmured. “Come here and look, guys.” They did, obediently, moving to stand behind her and look studiously at the computer she had set on the back gate of the truck. Adam licked his ice cream cone as he considered the screen. “Do you see it?”

“Yeah,” Adam licked off a stray melting rivulet and then leaned in to poin. “This is it, right?”

“Yep! You got it. You see it, Lucky?” He murmured an affirmative. Rachael turned back to the computer, toggled to another view, and frowned. “But I’m thinking we won’t see anything for at least another few hours. We’re in the right place to stage for anything should it happen, but I think we’ve got some time.”

Adam thought about the five-thirty AM wake-up call, and tried not to slump too much. “I’ve got some reading I could do,” he said instead. It was too hot to nap; even in shorts and a t-shirt and with all of the windows and doors of the truck open, he’d be sweltering. “Maybe find a tree to sit under or something.”

“I could use a walk.” Lucky crunched off a bite of ice cream cone. “Stretch my legs. You wanna come, Adam?”

“Sure,” he replied, around a mouthful of ice cream.

Rachael looked back at Adam over her shoulder, only half-turning to look quickly at Lucky as well. “Don’t go far,” she settled on, after a moment’s clear thought.

Lucky walked backwards for a ways, making it easier to talk to Rachael, and Adam scanned the car park for anything he might trip over on the way. “We won’t, just around the block a time or two. Get some fresh air.” With that, he turned around, thrust his hands into the pockets of his shorts, and said, “Man, she’s really suspicious you’re up to something, huh?”

“I mean,” Adam pointed out, crunching down on his own cone, “I am. Kind of. Not intentionally.”

“No. I wonder if she’s like … something weird, too. Crowley’s magic doesn’t work on her all the way, you know?”

“Or he was just kind of stressed and it only worked so much. There was that article from that town the next day about an angel, right? A few people got sort of skipped. It was a lot.”

Lucky shrugged, finished his treat, and stuffed the sticky napkin that had been wrapped around the cone into his pocket. Adam snorted. “Hey,” he said then, before Lucky could protest, “I had an idea. About how to find out how to keep angels away.”

“Oh yeah?” Lucky glanced backwards toward the empty lot. The town they were in was tiny, and all small buildings: if they stayed on the block around the gas station Crowley and Aziraphale would have no trouble seeing them, even without moving their car. Indeed, the 4Runner remained resolutely still, its darkened windows hiding the two occupants from view. The taller boy nodded. “What is it?”

Adam pulled his mobile from his pocket. “Phone a friend. I know someone who might know something.”

There was a moment where they stopped walking, the better for Lucky to stop and stare at Adam, blinking once or twice. “If this is another supernatural being -” he started, but Adam cut him off with a laugh and a shake of his head.

“Nah, she’s just a witch.”

“Oh.” Lucky threw up his hands. “Just a witch. Alright. Fine. Of course you know a real witch.”

Adam was grinning as he scrolled through his contacts. “She’s good, too. If anyone can help, it’ll be her. Hang on, let’s stop here. Can you turn on a hot spot?”

“Yeah, give me a second.”

With Adam’s phone online, taking advantage of the unlimited wireless and data plan courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Dowling, he was free to call Anathema. The two of them plopped down on a curb along the side of the road, under the shade of one of the few trees, the better to make the call. Lucky was playing lookout, and once even waved to Rachael and Noel back in the car park, although Adam rather suspected it was to Aziraphale and Crowley behind them.

He wondered if she would pick up - it was early evening over in England though, and she generally wasn’t an early to bed sort. When she answered on the second ring, Adam felt a little tension seep out of his shoulders, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Hey, Anathema.”

“Adam! What are you doing? How’s America? To what do I owe the pleasure?” There was the sound of … something, in the background. A drill, he realized. And, more distantly, the sound of Newt muttering to himself. “Sorry, putting furniture together, and if I leave the room the drill will explode, probably. Not in the mood to take Newt to the hospital tonight.”

“No, no sounds like a bad time,” Adam agreed with a laugh. “Uh. And it’s going … okay. Good. Er.”

“What’s happening?” Good old Anathema, never missed a beat. “I  _ knew it _ , if this was just a social call you would have just waited until you’re home. What’s up?” Her tone was light, on a surface level, but there was a current of anxiety underneath that Adam realized had been there the whole time, only now becoming truly noticeable. 

Adam put his face in his hand. “So much. So, so much. Listen, I need help with -”

“Wait.” He could hear her moving around, and the sound of the drill stopped in the background. “Alright. Go ahead.”

Staring at his shoes, he said, tone flat, “How do you like … banish angels? Or keep them away. Do you know?”

Silence for a breath, two. “Adam, I’m going to be very calm about this, but you need to tell me what’s happening.” She swore then, something in Spanish that Adam didn’t understand but which sounded absolutely full of venom. “I  _ knew _ it. We haven’t heard from you in days, not even a text, and - I’m going to call Crowley.”

“Don’t bother,” Adam said miserably. He heard the line jumble, like she’d taken the phone away from her face and brought it back up again. “He’s here.”

“I know he’s there,” she replied, and he could hear her punching the screen of her phone, presumably dialing. “Finally spotted them, huh?”

Adam’s jaw dropped open. “You - Okay, no wait, don’t call Crowley.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bloody hell. What, did he tell you after he came over?”

“Aft -” She stopped suddenly. “Yeah. Y- _ eah _ . So why can’t I call him? He could ask Aziraphale.”

“I already asked Aziraphale - he won’t tell me.”

Anathema breathed on the other end of the line for a while before asking, in a low, quiet voice, “Adam, what’s happening? What’s going on?”

He swallowed, and bit back a tremble. “Oh, you know. A Duke of Hell and an Archangel are trying to kill me. With tornadoes.” She didn’t answer for a while. “Haven’t managed it yet, though,” he added, to Lucky’s dry amusement to his left. “Aziraphale and Crowley have been running interference, but honestly, they’re not very helpful.” Anathema made a strangled little noise that might have been a laugh. “So anyway, we - me and Lucky, uh, tell you about him later, he’s cool -” he ignored the ‘ _ Aw _ ’ from the other boy, “- think we have a plan for Hastur uh, the Duke of Hell, but Michael’s … different.”

“ _ Archangel _ Michael?” Anathema said after he finished. “That Michael? The one in … in the Bible?”

“Pretty sure that’s her. She’s not very nice.”

“She - no, no I guess she wouldn’t be.” She groaned. “Well, Adam, you don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

In spite of himself, a grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Guess not. So do you uh, know anything?”

Sounding fairly frazzled, Anathema answered, “Well, not that I’ve done. I … I might have a book or two about it somewhere, possibly. I’d have to find it.” She sighed. “I’m  _ sure _ Aziraphale has a book about it, but only he knows where it might be, and I’m not about to go break into their house and start looking around.”

“You’d probably turn into a frog or something,” Adam mused. “Yeah, don’t do that. So you don’t just like … know anything off the top of your head?”

“Not off the top of my head, no. Is there immediate danger? Where are your godfathers?”

“Nothing immediate,” Adam said quickly. “They’re in their car across the car park. They don’t know I’m talking to you.” He smiled wryly. “They’ve been about as helpful as they usually are.”

“Oh, God. Okay. You know, I keep wondering what good it is keeping an angel and a demon around if all they ever do is get in the way. Hang on.” He heard her huff, followed by the shuffle of socks across the floor. “They’re lucky they’re likeable,” she murmured. “You’re sure you’re safe?”

He looked up. It was blue skies overhead now, but there were big, fluffy clouds to the west, and he’d seen the radar. “For now,” he replied. “How are you?”

“Fine. Everything’s fine. Status quo in Tadfield.”

“Good,” he said, grinning. “Great. Uh, and please don’t tell anyone else about this. ‘Specially not Them.”

“If that’s what you want.” She sounded distracted, and he could hear her humming wordlessly as she did whatever it was. “I do have some books here that might help, but I have to go through them … How much time do you have?”

He kicked at a rock in the road, watching it skitter out into the street before promptly getting run over by a passing tractor. “A little while. Probably a couple of hours before the next storm rolls in.”

“Great. Okay. And you have cell service?”

“I don’t, but Lucky does. I can give you his -” he glanced to Lucky, who nodded and shrugged all in one loose movement, “- his number, and you can text whatever. Okay?” She confirmed, and when she was ready Adam recited the digits. “You can send whatever to that, he has a really good data plan.”

“Courtesy of the US government,” Lucky cracked dryly. “Thank you, Madame President.”

“What’d he say?” Anathema asked. “Wait, he knows about all of this? He’s just a normal human?”

“Not really. It’s a weird story. I’ll tell you when I’m home, ‘cause it’s gonna take a while.”

She sounded dubious. “Alright.” She sighed, and then said again, “Alright. I’ll look through these, and text whatever I find to your friend’s number. I’ll try to be quick about it.”

“Thanks, Anathema,” he said, toying with his shoelaces. “You’re great.”

Ignoring the compliment, she pressed: “And you’re sure you’re safe?” Her voice was gentle and quiet, but there was something fiercely protective there, underneath. “Because if you need help, or just someone to shout those two bird-brains into action -”

Adam laughed at that. “ _ No _ . No, I promise. They’re doing a really good job keeping me safe, if nothing else. Best and weirdest supernatural bodyguards ever. I mean, sort of what you’d expect with them.”

“Yeah,” she answered, laughing as well. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay, Adam. But the minute you get in trouble and I can help, you  _ will _ let me know, alright?”

“Called you, didn’t I? ‘Course I will.” He scuffed his sneakers on the pavement. “Thanks for answering, Anathema.”

“Of course, Adam. Alright.” He could hear pages rustling. “I’m going to get cracking. Be safe.”

“I will. Talk to you soon.” He heard her mutter a similar sentiment as he pulled the phone away from his ear, and tapped the ‘end call’ button. “Well,” he said, after he stuffed his phone back into his pocket, “I guess now we wait.”

“Guess so.” Lucky stretched his legs out in front of him, into the deserted street, and spun his feet around in circles. “Wanna walk if that’s all we’re doing anyway? I swear I’m getting a blood clot from all this driving.”

Adam stood up easily and Lucky lurched upright in his wake. “I thought you Americans were used to driving,” Adam said, as the two of them meandered off, back on their path around the block, side-by-side. “Thought you drive all over the place.”

“That’s stereotyping.  _ Some _ Americans drive all over the place.”

“You?”

“Not really. Everything’s pretty close, where I live. The longest drives I usually go on are out to the mountains to hike or whatever.”

“I’d like to see where you live sometime,” said Adam, before he winced. “Er. If that’s not weird.”

“It’s not. It’s not that special there, though. I guess I could get you into the White House or something, that might be kind of cool.” He considered it. “What if we could sneak into the Oval Office, get a picture of you at the President’s desk …”

“You could do that?”

“It’d take a plan, but I think if we went on a day where the President isn’t in-house …”

Over the course of the next ninety minutes, they lapped the block exactly fourteen times, changing direction once when they both got sick of seeing the same buildings from the same angle over and over. They also came up with Oval Office photo op Plans A through E, each of which hinged on increasingly unlikely scenarios involving letting loose animals into the place, or creating some similar ridiculous diversion. They both felt rather confident about Plan B in particular, which would require dosing the President’s cat with copious amounts of catnip and deploying strategic toilet paper robots, but should work if they could figure out how to organize that without anyone noticing. All the while, clouds gathered to the west.

On lap fifteen, Lucky’s phone pinged. They stopped, and read the message once they realized it was from Anathema. As they read, both of them frowned increasingly more. “ _ Fresh blood _ ?” Lucky said, after they’d read a while. “Enough to draw  _ that _ ? Where are we gonna get that much blood without anyone noticing?”

“We’re not. Keep scrolling.”

The message went on about warding sigils, which would be effective at keeping angels out of a building or enclosure, but wouldn’t be adequate for their purposes. It concluded with a few sentences about angels in general, and read as follows:

“ _ Angels as a Legion function as a unit, but individually are supposedly primarily dictated in terms of form and appearance by belief, to an extent. Whether the angel’s belief in its own appearance can be subverted by powerful enough belief to the contrary is undetermined. _ ”

“So …” Lucky said, staring at the message. “So we can just  _ believe _ her away? Like in a Disney movie or something?”

Adam sighed. “I don’t think that’s what that means.” He thought about it. “I guess I could believe she’s like … the size of an ant or something. Don’t think it would work, though.”

“Probably not.” Lucky scrolled back up to the sigil. “The other problem with the banishing symbol thing is we’d have to get her close enough to it for it to work.”

“Right. Also unlikely.”

Lucky and Adam exchanged glum looks. “So that’s that, I guess. Unless she comes through with anything else.”

“Should I text her?” Lucky asked. “See if there might be anything else?”

“Nah. Just … thank her, I guess.” His expression twisted into a scowl, and he shot a dirty look over his shoulder toward the 4Runner. “Aziraphale and Crowley know another way, I bet. Maybe we can get it out of them.”

Lucky had re-read the last message, and texted a thank-you, but as soon as it had gone through he’d scrolled up again, back to Anathema’s last note. “But what it … It almost sounds like what you do to one angel, you do to all the angels. Look, see? ‘ _ Angels as a Legion function as a unit _ ’, right?” His brow furrowed. “Maybe we can’t do anything specifically to Michael, without also hitting any other angels in proximity. Which would be Aziraphale.”

Adam had started walking again, shoes shuffling across the blacktop and kicking stray stones. Lucky tagged along, half a step behind. “They  _ are _ like … like, you hear about the Host, or whatever. So maybe.” He looked up, to the clouds towering above them. “Maybe we  _ do _ have to do something with belief and Michael’s form.”

“What, though?”

“Dunno. We’ll have to think about it, I guess.”

“Hm.” Lucky also looked up then. The white clouds were now towering high directly overhead, and to the west, the sky was darker, and rapidly filling up with thick, steely-looking cloud formations. “Do we have time?”

They stopped walking again, this time to observe the clouds instead of Anathema’s messages. “That looks like a mothership kind of thing,” Lucky said eventually. “Does it look like it’s rotating to you, or is that just me?”

“Yup.” Adam stuck his hands into his pockets. “We should probably get back to the truck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry I've not been better about getting back to comments lately - work has been kicking my butt and I wanted to focus my free time on getting you guys a new chapter!! Hope you enjoy, we're starting in on the end. :)


	27. The Waffle House Index

Rachael noticed it before Adam did, this time. “You know, this lightning doesn’t look right.”

They were a good distance from the storm, probably at least 3 miles, but there were so few trees here, and the land was so flat, that visibility was still excellent. Rachael had been photographing the lightning snaking out from underneath the gigantic stormcloud since they’d stopped a few minutes ago, but after the first minute of happy muttering, she’d quieted down into thoughtful silence while she worked.

“How so?” Noel asked, his own camera shutter clicking. Adam, sat on the open back gate of the truck, glanced into the bed at the lightning equipment, and then back to the open sky over the prairie. Another bright blue bolt cracked the sky, searching blindly for the ground.

“I’m not seeing any alternate leaders, no secondary flashes.” Her camera clicked a few more times, as another burst of lightning broke loose from the clouds. “Reminds me of the storm from the other day.”

Adam brushed some of his hair behind his ear, although with the wind whipping around the way it was, it was re-mussed in short order. Again, he looked back to the equipment in the truck’s bed, brow furrowed. “Should we put out some of the equipment? Is it gonna come this far?”

Lucky had taken up station at the laptop, which was also set upon the back gate of the truck, just to Adam’s left. As Adam spoke, the other boy had looked up, eyebrows arched with concern. “It’s moving this way.”

“Give it a few minutes.” Rachael looked up from her camera viewfinder, the better to scowl at the storm. “I’m gonna try a few rapid-series. Maybe the leaders are just really small. And I haven’t seen  _ any _ cloud-to-cloud bolts, have you?”

“Wasn’t really paying attention,” said Noel. Adam kept quiet: he knew the answer was ‘no’. Eyes narrow, he kept watching the storm.

They waited. Rachael and Noel took photos, Adam watched the storm from his perch on the truck’s gate, and Lucky alternated between watching the storm and checking the radar and, on occasion, shooting worried glances at Adam. At some point, small drops of rain started to patter down sporadically around them, and Lucky decided to put the computer away, back in the dry safety of the truck’s cab. Thunder rumbled overhead as he did. Adam looked up.

The clouds writhed and twisted, although here they were far from the clear mesocyclone, still a mile or two away. The rain continued to drizzle down, and a drop hit him square in the eye.

“Hm,” he said to himself, quietly. Then, louder, “The last few bolts seem like they’ve been kind of close. Closer, anyway. I could throw a probe out, just to see.”

Rachael didn’t seem convinced. “They’re still a mile or so off. And they’re strong, but there’s not many.”

Noel, on the other hand, shrugged and looked back to Adam, over his shoulder. “Can’t hurt though, can it? What’s the worst that happens, it doesn’t get any data?

“It doesn’t get any data and that meso drops a tornado and we have to leave and I don’t find my probe,” Rachael answered, tone flat. “That’s the worst that could happen.”

“Still not all that bad.” He waved a hand. “Go ahead and throw the little one out there in the field, Adam. Watch for snakes and gopher holes.”

The gravel road crunched under his shoes as he jumped down from the back gate. He wrestled the smaller probe - the one he could carry by himself - out of its restraints and wrapped his arms around it before waddling off of the road, down the small embankment, and out into hip-length prairie grass. He couldn’t really see his feet, but he shuffled along, hoping the sound would startle away any snakes, and the shuffling would be enough to alert him to any holes in his path. 

He dropped the probe onto the grass once he found a fairly flat spot, about a hundred yards or so away from the road. He made sure it was hammered into the dirt as well as he could, even jumping on the stakes once or twice to be safe, and then tightened the screw holding the lightning rod into place. All the while, thunder rumbled overhead. Adam looked up every time, eyes on the clouds. 

By the time he’d finished and started heading back toward the road, the hairs on the backs of his arms were standing up, and the smell of rain and ozone was heavy in the air. He paused, roughly halfway between road and probe, and looked up at the sky. The edge of the mesocyclone was over them now, a giant writhing mass of cloud. “I know it’s you,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard over the sporadic plops of raindrops around him. “I know you’re here, one of you. Both, maybe.”

Thunder grumbled. Adam scowled. “This isn’t even a proper storm to start anything. What, still too tired from the other day?” More thunder. “Whatever.” He continued on his plodding trek back to the truck, hands in his pockets and eyes on the ground, looking out for snakes. 

Twenty feet away from the road, he saw a pale, slick shine in the grass. A rattlesnake, maybe, he thought, but no; on closer inspection, he could see it was a toad. He stopped, and thought,  _ this isn’t the right place for a toad _ . There were no ponds around, no streams or creeks, not even an animal trough. It was dry grassland as far as the eye could see, broken only by the straight gravel road cutting through. 

The toad blinked at him, left eye and then right, in quick succession.

“Huh,” Adam said. Then, hands still shoved into his pockets, he slouched over toward the animal and, very deliberately, nudged the creature with the toe of his shoe. It didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge the bump. “Not a very good place for a toad, I think.” He looked up.

A loud crack of thunder sounded overhead, and a bolt of lightning split through the clouds, surging toward the ground and striking the grass not twenty yards away. Adam jumped. The toad croaked, and its tongue - long and gray - darted out, stuck to a rock by Adam’s foot, and, rather improbably, burst into flames.

“ _ Oh _ ,” said Adam. “Shit.” He could see in his mind’s eye the purple bottle of Holy Water, safely nestled beneath the back seat of the truck. 50 yards away. No use here. He could run, and get it, but then what if the toad gave chase, or hopped off to hide and saw the bottle? He didn’t want to play his hand early ...

Another idea occurred to him, and without putting much thought into it, he decided that without the bottle, it would have to do. So, he wound up like a professional footballer and kicked the toad in the direction of the last lightning strike, away from the road, glaring after its soft pale body as it tumbled through the air and eventually disappeared into the long grass. As an afterthought, he stamped out the smouldering grass where the thing had been before continuing on his way back to the truck.

When the smell of ozone swelled, filling his nose and making his head tingle, he started to run. Half a second later, a white-hot bolt of plasma seared into the dirt where he’d kicked the toad, re-igniting the smouldering grasses into a proper fire, in spite of the now-driving rain.

“Adam!” he heard Lucky yelling, but he was already scrambling through the rain-slicked grass up the embankment, falling to his hands and knees. He stumbled onto the gravel a second later, his legs bruised and dirty, and didn’t stop moving until his back was pressed up against the truck, eyes fixed on the field where he’d left the probe. The grass surrounding it was slightly on fire.

Noel and Rachael looked him over while he caught his breath. Noel was the first to say anything, once they both seemed satisfied that Adam’s only wounds were skinned knees. “Well, good call on the lightning probe, I guess.”

“I’m gonna sit in the truck, if that’s okay,” Adam panted. He didn’t wait for an answer.

They  _ all  _ got into the truck, actually. Once there, they rumbled down the road another mile or two, until they were out from under the worst of the lightning, and everyone but Adam hopped back out again; Adam himself stayed firmly seated in the back. Where they had been just before they’d moved was a lightning hotbed now, and Adam leaned out of the open window just a little to watch. Lucky had since made his way around to Adam’s side, and was being very careful not to touch the truck’s metal body.

“Did you kick a frog?” he asked, after a few strikes sizzled on the pavement they’d previously been parked on. “Did I see that right?”

Adam nodded. “In my defense, I’m almost positive it was a demon.” Lucky blinked at him. “Maybe not Hastur but something. It caught fire. Could have been a lesser demon or whatever, or like … a familiar. Do demons have familiars?” He frowned. “Crowley doesn’t, he just turns into a snake.”

“You just  _ kicked _ a - a Hell-Frog?” Lucky gaped, not entertaining the concept of demonic familiars at all.

“Yes.” And then, swallowing every instinct he had to start laughing, Adam looked down to his sneakers, and the purple bottle between them, and said solemnly, “A demo-toad.”

Lucky stared. “Puns. You almost died again, and you’re making puns?”

Adam shrugged as he looked up into Lucky’s incredulous expression. “At this point, as opposed to what? The bright side, though, is that if that  _ was _ Hastur, and not a familiar or something, he couldn’t do much to me, since I left the bottle in the truck. He must still be weak from the tornado the other day. Speaking of.” He swiveled to his right to look toward the main body of the storm. It still looked promising, a low anvil hung beneath the dark and towering cap, but there wasn’t a funnel to be seen. “Nice.”

“Yeah. Open the computer and see how it looks.”

He did, and held the computer up to allow both of them to study the radar while Noel and Rachael wandered down the road to take more photos. It was a beautiful storm, weird lightning notwithstanding, and Adam felt sure they’d be able to sell a few of the shots. Certainly, with the purple-blue hue of the anvil cloud and the white bolts of lightning, it would make for dramatic images. On radar, however, the picture didn’t look nearly as good: the storm had lost some organization, and was starting to scatter out across the prairie. “So much for tornadoes,” sighed Lucky. It was hard to tell if he was disappointed or relieved.

Back down the road, the electrical action was still high: bolt after bolt of lightning snapped against the pavement they’d been parked on. Adam watched carefully. “That’s something, at least.”

“Yeah.” Lucky sighed, and Adam quietly closed the computer and set it carefully back on its spot on Rachael’s seat. They were silent for a little while, watching the lightning and the storm. Then Lucky said, “Hey, Adam?”

“What’s up?”

“Do you think baby demon frogs are called  _ bad _ -poles?” That did it: the dam broke, and the two of them burst out into raucous laughter even as the rain picked up and the thunder boomed a bit more loudly.

They laughed their way through the rest of the storm, coming up with increasingly terrible frog puns, much to the bemusement of their guides. The lightning was beautiful, if weird, and remained perfectly, wonderfully distant. By the time the storm blew over them it had fizzled out into a scuddy mess of high winds, pea-sized hail, and driving rain. They waited for the worst of the rain to pass before heading back down the road to retrieve the probe, marveling at the charcoal rings burned into the pavement where lightning had struck. 

Although Adam was capable of carrying the probe himself, Lucky helped him with the retrieval this time, both of them now on high-alert for snakes, gopher holes,  _ and  _ toads, but they didn’t see a thing out of place either direction. Still, Adam had brought the bottle with him, tucked into the back of his shorts, just in case.

Rachael watched them work, leaned up against the truck and ostensibly looking through her pictures from the day on the camera’s LCD. She waited until they’d hoisted the probe into the back of the truck, and until Lucky had headed around to his seat, leaving Adam to close the gate up himself. “Adam?”

He winced. He’d sort of expected this. Slowly, he turned to face her, and managed a smile. She was still holding her camera, but wasn’t making any attempt to appear to be preoccupied with it anymore; her eyes were firmly on him, her mouth twisted with the hint of a frown. “Yeah?”

“You almost got hit by lightning again.”

“Yeah.” He forced a laugh. “Never thought I was so negative.”

She didn’t even blink. “Har har. And did you kick a frog?”

“Thought it was a snake.” It wasn’t a good lie, or a good distraction, and Rachael clearly wasn’t buying it. He spread his hands. “I’m not almost getting struck by lightning  _ on purpose _ .”

She sniffed. “I didn’t say you were. I just think there are an  _ awful  _ lot of strange coincidences happening.”

He cocked a half-grin, the kind that had always worked on teachers and disapproving village adults. “Sure. But they’re just coincidences.” His grin faltered when she continued to stare. “I thought you said you don’t believe in that kind of thing.”

“I don’t.” She looked up to the clouds briefly, before turning her attention back to him. “How do you know where the lightning’s going to hit? Or that tornado … Do you have, like, some tech you’re testing, or something, because -”

“No.” Adam held up his hands. “Nothing. Just really, really bad luck.” Well, it wasn’t a lie. He figured being born as the Antichrist probably would count as bad luck in most people’s books. She studied his face for a minute, and then nodded, slowly. 

“You’d tell me if you did?”

He let his hands fall to his sides. “I’m just a regular university student, I swear.”

“Alright.” She cocked her head to his usual seat. “Hop in. Let’s call it for tonight. I want to look at that data.” He nodded, and did as he was told.

The ride to the nearest town with a hotel took about an hour, and for Adam the entire journey was awkwardly -  _ painfully  _ \- quiet. Adam and Lucky didn’t dare speak or text, afraid the light from their phone screens in the gloomy dusk would arouse suspicion. Rachael continued to look through her photos, but once or twice Adam caught her glancing back at him, brow furrowed and eyes narrow. The only exception was Noel, who drove on with a placid smile, apparently blissfully unaware of anything unusual. 

-

They posted up in a Best Western for the night, conveniently located across the street from a pizza place and a Waffle House. The group spoke briefly in the lobby, agreeing to meet up around ten the next morning to check the weather and decide on a plan; nothing seemed to have obvious potential when Rachael had last checked the radar, but perhaps something would look more promising in the morning. Rachael and Noel voiced that they would be going to the pizza place for dinner, if either student were interested in joining, but Adam and Lucky both politely declined.

“I think I’m feeling waffles,” Lucky admitted, eliciting a grin from Noel.

“Nothing wrong with late-night waffles. Alright. See you boys in the morning,” he said, before they headed back out the door, presumably for pizza. 

Adam had just about enough time to count to ten after the sliding doors whirred shut before Aziraphale and Crowley slipped in through a side door. He exchanged a look with Lucky, and an imperceptible nod passed between the two of them, before Adam turned his attention back to his godfathers.

“Quite a day,” Aziraphale said, smoothing his waistcoat down. “Lucky Hastur wasn’t feeling up to anything stronger.”

Lucky nodded fervently. “Right. So that  _ was _ him.” Aziraphale nodded; if either he or Crowley had noticed the toad, neither said anything about it. Adam thought it best not to bring it up, all things considered, and fortunately Lucky seemed to agree. “And he had to use some battery to do that storm, didn’t he? So we should do our thing tonight, right?”

“In time,” Aziraphale replied. “But yes, tonight. Just … not right this moment.” His hands were clasped in front of his stomach, and Adam could see his fingers working nervously. “I need some time to prepare.” He looked to Crowley. “Yes?”

Crowley shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me either way.” Then, more softly, “Take your time, angel.”

“Going to get your flaming sword?” Adam interjected, in an attempt at a joke. Aziraphale frowned at him, and the boy hunched his shoulders down, looking away. “Sorry, just kidding.”

“You know,” Lucky cut in, smoothing over the awkward pause that followed, “that’s fine. Er. Adam and I were thinking we would go grab something to eat, just across the street. Um, so if you need to get ready or whatever, we can just sit inside by the window and grab some food …” he trailed off, hopefully. Crowley was watching him, one eyebrow delicately raised. 

“Are you asking for some time alone to be normal and eat pancakes?” Crowley asked, cutting to the chase.

Lucky slumped with relief. “Yeah.”

“Fair enough, fine by me. We’ll stay outside.” To his right, Aziraphale looked absolutely awash with relief. His hands had even stopped fidgeting. Crowley nudged him with one bony elbow. “You alright with that?”

“Absolutely. After you’ve finished, then, we can go over the plan once more and … and take care of the issue.”

Crowley snorted. “Yes, ‘ _ take care of the issue _ ,’ like it’s a minor ant problem back home. Sure.” He cocked his head toward the door. “Come on, we’ll walk you over.”

It was only once they’d sat down with the running lights of the 4Runner shining in through the windows behind them that Adam and Lucky bent their heads together and started to plan. The pale purple blender bottle sat on the counter between them. 

“Can’t believe you didn’t accidentally drink out of it all day,” said Adam, eyeing the bottle warily. He sipped at his Coke. 

“S’why I threw it under the seat this morning - so I wouldn’t.” He grinned for a moment, and then frowned. “But it sucks we forgot it this afternoon when you saw that toad.”

“Yeah. Wish I’d remembered it.”

“Me too.” Lucky ran his hand through his hair. “Alright. So. We’re gonna do this, yeah? No godfathers.”

Adam nodded, expression stony. “No godfathers. And you’re  _ sure _ -”

Lucky nodded. “All you need from me is a little blood, right? I’m sure. Are  _ you _ sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I think so.” He toyed with one of the dog-eared corners of his menu. “I don’t think I could banish him on my own, but that circle you and Crowley looked at was like a power booster, right? So once you seal the first circle I can summon him and banish him with the other circle as like … like an amplifier or something.”

“Right. Exactly.” Lucky was quiet while the waitress refilled his coffee, and then looked back to Adam, frowning. “And you’re  _ sure _ you don’t want anyone -”

“No one there. Just me and him.” Adam nodded. “I’m the one he wants, anyway.”

“I’d feel better if you had someone else there.”

“Me too,” Adam admitted. “But it’s not safe. For any of you.” He pointedly did not look over his shoulder for the 4Runner, but he did look at his phone, and could see the reflection of the car in the black screen. “Alright.” He picked up a fork, surreptitiously, and slid it into his pocket. “Act natural. I’ll call when I’m ready.”

“Be careful.”

With that, Adam did his best to look completely unconcerned as he trudged toward the back of the restaurant, where the restrooms were. The fork and the box of sidewalk chalk he’d swiped from a gas station earlier in the day felt heavy in the pockets of his shorts, but he did his best to ignore it, and went on.

It was a stroke of luck, really, the way the Waffle House was laid out: he’d expected the back exit door to be in the kitchen, but instead there was a narrow hallway that led to the kitchen on the left, the restrooms on the right, and ended at an emergency exit door. Adam concentrated on the alarm - it would not sound, not for the rest of the night - and pushed his way out into the humid darkness. 

He would have to work fast. There was a patch of asphalt concealed behind the dumpster, and he headed for it as quickly as he could while pulling up the summoning circle and the necessary sigils on his phone. He slipped a stick of blue chalk free - none of the things they’d found had specified a certain color chalk - and started on the circle, focusing on making it as regular and round as possible while freehand drawing.

He had seen the summoning circle at Aziraphale’s bookshop once, when the angel hadn’t been paying attention and a sliver of one of the sigils had been peeking out from beneath the rug. Surprisingly, this circle wasn’t nearly as intricate; he wondered if it had something to do with demons being easier to summon than angels. But then, if a demon summoning was done wrong, things could apparently go very ugly, very fast. 

So he was careful. He was as deliberate as he could be given the time, tracing each sigil out in turn around the circle, especially the one that would call Hastur specifically. That one was a bit trickier, being that it wasn’t a clear diagram they’d found online, but rather a photo of a napkin Crowley had scribbled on, briefly, before he’d torn the thing up and tossed it into a toilet. He checked, and double-checked, and then when he was sure, he triple-checked that the circle was a complete line before he called Lucky.

“Already?” Lucky asked. His mouth was full.

“Did you get something to eat?” Adam shook himself. “I mean … yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Okay. Be right there.”

If Adam had been working quickly before, they’d have to fly now: Aziraphale and Crowley were probably already wondering what was taking him so long to start with, and with Lucky disappearing they certainly wouldn’t be far behind. Hopefully they would check the bathroom first - with the circle positioned behind the dumpster that might buy a few extra seconds.

Lucky burst through the back door and ran around the dumpster, the purple water bottle held close like he was trying to run it in for a touchdown. “Here!” Adam said, thrusting the fork at the other boy, tines-first. Lucky stretched his free hand out simultaneously, as if to grab it, but Adam’s plan worked, and the tines found their way home into the fleshy pad of the other boy’s palm. The taller boy yelped, but Adam could only focus on the blood welling up in four little prick-marks. “Quick!”

“You fucking stabbed me!” Lucky griped, though he was bending down and squeezing some of the blood out onto the blue chalk circle as he did. “I thought we agreed I’d do it myself!”

“Didn’t want you to chicken out,” Adam said hurriedly. “Okay, leave the bottle and get out of here, go find the other two and try to distract them.” He took a step back, arms hanging at his sides, and looked at the circle. He even took a breath, though it felt like there was no time. And then, trying to focus on the circle, he started the incantation.

Only it wasn’t  _ really  _ an incantation. Adam had always thought incantations involved Latin and Greek and all sorts of old, spooky-sounding languages. This was in English, and there were no ‘thee’ or ‘thou’ kind of words to be had. Just a polite demand that a certain demon appear within the circle, be bound to the circle’s rules, and that that demon be, specifically, Hastur, Duke of Hell.

And it didn’t seem to work. At least, not at first. Adam was trembling when he finished speaking, hands clenched at his sides, his t-shirt stuck to his back with cold sweat, but for the barest of seconds, the circle remained empty and inert. It hadn’t worked, he thought, and he wondered where he’d gone wrong. He leaned forward to check the sigils, his right hand already halfway to his pocket, when the first piece of asphalt crumbled away. Then the second. He stepped back then, because suddenly, within the chalk ring, all of the pavement was falling away, down into somewhere hot and fiery, and rising from the ground itself was a demon.

Adam had only ever met two demons: Crowley and Zozo. Both were agents stationed on Earth, but it hadn’t ever really occurred to him that that would  _ mean _ anything about how they looked. But of course, he thought distantly, his own eyes meeting Duke Hastur’s cold, black ones, it would. They would look more human than other demons, be more familiar with how humans were. 

Hastur, clearly, either was not, or did not care. The Duke had a tattered beige overcoat on, a dirty scarf around his neck that might have once been a soft, brown tartan, and an overall air of slimy, disgusting menace. He had no hair, but seated atop his deathly-pale head was a very familiar toad.

“So it was you,” Adam said faintly, unable to look away from the amphibian. It croaked in response.

“Adam Young,” said Hastur, Duke of Hell, and even from six feet away his breath stank like a dead animal. “Our master’s rebellious son.” His face made an expression that might have been an attempt at a sneer, but ended up looking more like a grimace. “I should have expected this.”

For a fleeting second - the barest of moments - Adam considered responding. Snapping something back, snarling about all the assassination attempts, yelling about how he’d said Hastur and Michael and all their sort weren’t to be mucking around anymore. He’d  _ said  _ so. He wanted to say all of those things, and they were hot and sharp on his tongue, bottled up in a burning lump in his throat, but instead what came out was, “Hastur, Duke of Hell, I have summoned you today to bind you to the command I will give you -”

Hastur watched him, blinked slowly - left eye, then right - and then rolled his eyes. “Oh, please,” he snarled. “You didn’t even manage the sigils properly.” And then he stepped through the circle.

Distantly, Adam was aware of shouting. Familiar shouting, Crowley-and-Aziraphale-sounding shouting, and maybe some Lucky shouting too. But only distantly, because all he could really see was Hastur advancing on him, rolling up his sleeves, and maggots spilling to the ground as he did. His thick-soled shoes clunked on the ground - like some kind of horror movie villain, a little, stunned part of Adam’s brain managed to think - and in one glistening, pale hand, a flame started to burn.

“I will enjoy this, nephilim,” he said, and the toad opened its mouth to croak. More maggots flowed out. 

He couldn’t run; it wasn’t that Hastur was particularly fast, but Adam’s legs had apparently checked out, and all he could manage was a slow shuffle backwards, off of the pavement and into the dusty scrub. “Stop,” he managed, over the distant shouting and the ringing in his ears. “Stop.”

Hastur grinned, and in spite of the toad on the demon’s head, it made Adam think of sharks. “No.”

He raised his hand, and Adam stumbled and fell back, instinctively raising his own hands over his head for what little protection they might offer. He could see something dark moving out of the corner of his eye - Crowley - but he would never make it in time, couldn’t possibly …

It occurred to Adam that Hastur had stopped moving. And started screaming. And melting. 

Later, he would be surprised by how fast it had happened, the melting of Duke Hastur. He didn’t see the whole thing (a fact which he would be very grateful for later), because as soon as the whole melting thing started in earnest - Hastur started to melt at the toad - Crowley grabbed Adam and bore him to the ground, skinny arms wrapped around the boy’s shoulders and pinning him still. The screaming didn’t last: he could still hear Aziraphale shouting for a moment after it had stopped, but before Adam could fully register what had just happened, it was silent. The Waffle House air conditioner kicked and buzzed on.

Adam was the first to say anything. He said, “Oh.”

That must have prompted Crowley to do something, because no sooner had he spoken then the demon released him and sat up, hovering over Adam, yellow snake eyes darting up-and-down Adam’s whole self, looking for damage* or injuries. “Adam, what the fuck -” He stopped himself, and then, one hand gently laid on Adam’s chest, just over his still-pounding heart, Crowley twisted around to look at Lucky. “Did you just … ?”

[* “ _ Would you actually have been able to see it?” Adam would tease him later, earning himself a glare and a muttered, “Shut up.” _ ]

Lucky was looking slowly back and forth between the purple bottle in his hand, and the puddle of acrid goo on the pavement that had been Hastur. “Yeah,” he said faintly. “Yeah, I think I did.”

Crowley gaped. “That was  _ extremely _ foolhardy,” Aziraphale was saying, and Adam could tell that was only the prologue for a real, proper lecture, but it faded into the background when Crowley turned back to look at him. “You alright?”

“I think so.” Adam wiggled his toes experimentally. “Yeah. Pretty sure I’m fine.” The demon nodded and scrambled up, half-tripping over himself in his haste to get to Lucky and wrap his arms around the tall boy, even managing to lift him up off the ground far enough that Lucky’s shoes could only brush the blacktop. Adam propped himself up on his elbows to watch.

“You bloody ssstupid, brilliant child,” Crowley was saying. By the looks of it, he was nearly squeezing the life out of Lucky. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Lucky responded with, “I can’t breathe, Nanny.” Crowley set him down, and he heaved a deep, relieved breath. “Thanks.”

With Crowley occupied, it was Aziraphale’s turn to loom over Adam now, hands propped on his hips. He didn’t look particularly happy, or at least he was trying not to, but Adam could practically feel the waves of relief radiating off of him. “Did you plan that? Rather, how  _ long  _ have you been planning that?”

“I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger,” Adam muttered. “Lucky was supposed to run - did he actually leave?”

“No.” Aziraphale held out his hands, an offer to help, and Adam took them, managing to get to his feet and stand, though his legs felt very wobbly. “We came ‘round the side and there you two were, with a Duke of Hell. What were you  _ thinking _ ?” He waved a hand before Adam could respond. “Yes, I know, not putting anyone into danger, alright. But  _ really _ ? What was the harm in waiting? We could have  _ helped _ .”

Adam looked at his sneakers. “Uh. Well. I s’pose I just … I dunno, I thought if you two were there he would go after you guys first, or something. Maybe. I dunno. Obviously didn’t think it through.” He looked to the circle, despairing. “An’ I must have done it wrong.”

“Probably because you were rushing.” Aziraphale tutted. “Really, Adam, that’s why we wanted to help. You could have been killed.” He looked back over his shoulder to where Lucky was still standing with the purple bottle. “Is that why you were in the church yesterday?”

“To get Holy Water? Yeah. Just in case.” 

Aziraphale sighed. “Always ‘just in case’ with Holy Water.” He watched Adam for a second, maybe two, and then shook his head. “You’re very fortunate Lucky was here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” Through the thick, stunned fog permeating his brain, a giggle broke through. “Lucky for Lucky!”

Behind Aziraphale, the other student groaned. “Here we go with the puns again.  _ Oof _ ,” he added, when Crowley constricted him in another hug.

“Don’t strangle him, dear,” Aziraphale admonished.

Crowley didn’t seem to hear. “I’m so bloody angry with you, and so bloody proud of you,” he said, his face buried in Lucky’s shoulder. “I’m going to kill you after I’m done with this bit.”

“I mean, I’d rather you didn’t.” Lucky grinned at the top of Crowley’s head, and then looked up to Adam, still giggling, and Aziraphale. “I really just did that, huh?”

“Utterly destroy a Duke of Hell? Yes. You did, rather.” Aziraphale folded his hands behind himself, sniffled, and looked to the restaurant. “Behind a Waffle House dumpster,” he added, with no small amount of disdain. He made a face, presumably at the smell of Hastur’s puddle, and waved a hand, leaving behind only clean pavement where the goo had been. 

“It’s what he deserved,” Crowley pointed out, before letting Lucky go once more. He ran a spindly hand through his hair. “I can’t believe you did that. Both of you,” he added, looking to Adam.

Lucky nodded. “Me neither, honestly. You know he stabbed me?”

“If you came up with this plan, then you deserved it.” The demon scrubbed at his face with both hands. “That was  _ bloody stupid _ , and you’d both better be thanking every lucky star you have that you didn’t die.”

Adam giggled again. “Sort of par for the course for me then, isn’t it?”

“Bless it, Adam, not now.” Crowley sagged, like all of the energy had suddenly gone out of him. Cocking his head, he looked over the ill-fated summoning circle. “You smudged the chalk when you bled on it.”

Adam stopped laughing then, and frowned. “I thought the blood would make up for any smudged chalk.”

“Technically, I bled on it,” Lucky pointed out. Thoughtfully, he asked, “Do we really have lucky stars?”

“No, you don’t,” Crowley snapped. “If I’d foreseen any of this I would have thrown some up there.” He sighed again, pinched the bridge of his nose below his glasses, and then threw his hands up. “Right! Well, that’s that, I suppose. One down, one to go.”

Aziraphale put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “ _ Please _ let us help you, next time.”

“I will.” Adam nodded, and realized belatedly that he had slumped up against the angel’s side, comfortable under Aziraphale’s arm. “I just … enough bad things have happened, I didn’t want to tempt fate. Uh. You know.”

“You dying would also be a significantly bad thing,” Crowley pointed out. “So keep that in mind next time, yeah?” He nodded his head in Aziraphale’s direction. “We came over here for a reason, and it looks like it’s a good thing we did. So let us help.”

“Okay.” There was a bit of quiet while Adam looked up, toward the roof of the Waffle House. “What do we do next?”

They looked around at one another, all four of them. It was a good question, and one that no one, up to this point, had apparently considered. Aziraphale was the first to speak. “Well, we’re not going to be going after Michael tonight. Not after that. I’ll ward the hotel room to be sure, but I doubt she’ll try anything so soon once she finds out what’s happened.”

Crowley snorted. “Firm no.”

“Did you actually eat supper?” Aziraphale looked down to Adam. “I never saw you get food.”

Adam’s smile was apologetic. “No. I kind of was distracted.”

“I only had toast,” Lucky volunteered.

“And I’m sure I didn’t see you pay,” the angel continued, sternly. “Very well then. First thing, we get you fed, then off to bed, I think. We can make a new plan in the morning.” He stayed in position, his arm around Adam’s shoulders, as they headed back around to the front of the restaurant. Adam, for his part, didn’t pull away. Crowley fell into step to Adam’s left, and Lucky on the outside, the four of them in a line. 

“Even if you did stuff it up a bit,” Crowley remarked as they rounded the front of the restaurant, “that is impressive, what you did, Adam. You know how many people have ever summoned a Duke of Hell through history?”

Adam looked up. “How many?”

They reached the front door, and it was Crowley who grabbed the handle, stammering wordlessly all the while. “Don’t really know,” he said, finally, while he waited for the other three to go inside. “It was a rhetorical question, really.”

“Oh, okay.”

And because Adam knew Crowley, it came as absolutely no surprise when, thirty minutes later and halfway through a gigantic plate of food, Adam was interrupted by the demon saying, apparently to either himself or his coffee cup (though he was sat next to Adam and therefore easily heard), “Forty-five, best I can recall.”

Adam laughed, and took another bite of eggs.


	28. Rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey (thank God)

Though Adam  _ knew  _ his powers weren’t strong enough to manipulate the weather anymore, he had to wonder if perhaps unconsciously he had any role in the clear, blue skies that followed for the few days after Hastur’s death. Crowley and Aziraphale didn’t say anything about it, but it was curious: the sun shone, fluffy, white, unthreatening clouds drifted across the sky, and the temperature was balmy, slightly humid, and perfect for enjoying the outdoors.

Occasionally, Adam would feel a stab of guilt about how happy he was. After all, someone had died. Not discorporated, not nearly died, but  _ actually _ died. Gone forever. But then, well, Lucky had  _ thrown  _ the Holy Water, and he didn’t seem to feel too bad about it. And Crowley was a demon, and he was openly delighted. Even Aziraphale, who was an angel and presumably against killing, seemed pleased with how things had panned out. 

And Hastur had been trying to kill him. There was that.

Still, he reflected one morning while he and Lucky were out for a walk around the town, just seeing the sights*, he would rather not kill anyone else. He even balked at the idea of killing Michael, and just the thought of her - the way he’d last seen her, taking Crowley with full intention of killing him - sent a searing bolt of rage through him. 

[*  _ There weren’t any, unless you were a big fan of corn _ .]

Enough rage, apparently, that even as they walked along quietly, Lucky noticed. “What’s up?”

Adam startled a little before falling back into step. “Oh. Just thinking.” The other boy looked expectant. “About Michael.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Lucky cast his gaze upwards toward the sky which was, at the moment, a soft blue and totally devoid of clouds. “We’re gonna have to do something about that, huh?”

“Maybe.” He thrust his hands into his pockets. “I mean … there haven’t been any storms at all since Hastur. Maybe she gave up?” He knew it was too much to hope; Aziraphale and Crowley had both scoffed at the thought of it when he’d brought it up over coffee a couple of days ago. 

Lucky nearly did too, but instead he settled for an incredulous frown. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it Michael that like … punched Lucifer out of Heaven?”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, glumly.

“Doesn’t seem like she’s the type to give up.”

Adam sighed. “No,” he agreed. “Probably not. Wish I knew what we’re gonna do about it, though.” He managed not to scowl too much when he looked over his shoulder toward where they’d left his godfathers on a wooden bench next to a small patch of green grass which was, ostensibly, a park. “They’re no help.”

“You think they know?”

Adam snorted. “Yes. I think the answer is a flaming sword, and I think Aziraphale has no intention of using it.” He bit his lip. “Nor I, though, to be honest. Not sure  _ killing _ is the right answer.”

Lucky shrugged. “We killed Hastur.”

“I know.” Adam sighed. “I know.”

“Did I tell you, when I was eleven and I met that guy for the first time, he bit his own finger off, he was so mad I wasn’t the Antichrist?” Adam didn’t respond, and so Lucky glanced down at him. “You don’t feel  _ bad _ about killing him, do you?” Expectant silence ballooned from the question, and Adam looked down to the blacktop.

“... A bit.” Adam admitted, and then he thought about it while the other boy choked out a few surprised sounds of indignation. “Well. I mean, I suppose. I mean … okay, I don’t feel bad per se, I guess, because even if a binding had worked, Crowley said he would only be banished to Hell so long as I’m alive, and you know he prob’ly would have just gone after Crowley and Aziraphale as soon as I died. So in a way, that’s good.” He sniffed and scuffed at the road with his shoe. “What I feel bad about, I guess, is not feelin’ all that bad.”

They both considered that for a little while as they walked. “You know how my dad works for the President, right?” Lucky asked, eventually.

“Yeah.”

“So sometimes,” the taller boy went on, once Adam looked up and at him, “when big things are happening, you have to make a big, hard decision. Like going to war, or using the death penalty, or even something totally different, like instating trade restrictions. Right?”

“... Right,” Adam said slowly, eyes narrowing as he tried to see the point before Lucky made it.

“And ‘cause of my dad, I was around for a few of those decisions - pretty much only the trade ones, obviously. Sort of peripherally, but I was.” He cocked his head. “Now for sure, it depends on the president, but like … sometimes when you make big decisions, it’s definitely the right choice in the end. Like, the most logical, clear decision. But it doesn’t mean you don’t feel terrible about making it.” He shrugged. “And that’s normal, I guess.”

Adam chewed that over for a little while. “So … so this is a smaller scale, but when I was fourteen,” he said slowly, “my friend Wensley’s cat got sick. They had to take it to the hospital and they were going to put it to sleep.” He sighed. “Wensley called and asked if I could make the cat better.”

“Did you?”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “An’ I felt  _ awful _ about it, even though I knew it was the right thing. You can’t just go messin’ about with people’s lives like that, makin’ things that aren’t supposed to happen happen just ‘cause you really want them to, or ‘cause it’s easier for you.” He put one hand out, palm up, Lucky watching him all the while. “And on this hand, did I do that? Did I kill Hastur ‘cause it makes my life easier?” He let his other hand fall open. “But on the other hand, was Hastur the one trying to do the messin’ about, what with killing me and re-starting the whole Armageddon thing? An’ someone had to stop it?”

For a long time, the only sounds were those of their sneakers on the sidewalk, and the occasional hum of a car driving past. “I’m not sure there’s a right answer to that, dude,” Lucky said, after a very long time.

Adam huffed. “Probably not. Wish I could ask Yeshua.”

Lucky hummed in empathetic agreement. “Friend of yours?” 

“Er.” Adam shrugged. “Yeah, I guess? Or like … he’s sort of my uncle. Like in the whole supernatural sense.”

That prompted a frown. “Another angel or demon?”

“No. These days most people call him Jesus.”

Lucky stopped walking. Adam did too, after another few steps, and when he turned around to face Lucky, his dark eyes were wide and disbelieving. “You know  _ Jesus _ ?” Lucky asked, breathless and hushed. “Like,  _ actual  _ Jesus?”

Adam couldn’t help but blush. “I mean, kind of. I spent Christmas with him one time. He’s cool. And he goes by Yeshua,” he added, as a gentle correction. 

“Yeshua,” Lucky parroted back quietly. Then, more quickly, “You realize that that’s like … amazing, right? To actually  _ talk to _ -”

“He and Crowley were friends, I guess.” Adam shrugged. “One year - same year Wensley’s cat died, actually - we spent Christmas eve at Aziraphale’s bookshop, and Yeshua snuck out of Heaven and came to hang out. He’s cool.”

“I’d imagine so.” He started walking, and Adam waited for him to catch up before they set off again. “You know, when you say stuff like that, you sound like an absolute lunatic. I mean, if I didn’t know, you know, everything I do, I’d have you committed.” Adam laughed. “So what’d you talk about with him? Like … what’s he like?”

“Cool,” Adam repeated with a shrug. “I dunno. He’s really nice, really chill. He was pretty up-to-date with what’s going on in the world, I guess because he kind of checks in from up there.” He threw his head back and looked up to the sky, trusting his feet to carry him forward, and sort of hoping Lucky would let him know if he were about to run into anything. “We talked about … stuff. Other supernatural magic stuff. Not this stuff.” Adam sighed and looked back down to the pavement. “Can’t say that at that point I really expected I’d ever be in a position where I’d have to consider killing someone, even if they were a demon.”

“That’s fair.” 

Lucky didn’t say anything else, and they walked along for a little while longer. Adam, on the other hand, was wrestling with something in the privacy of his own head, back and forth, until before he knew it he started talking. “We didn’t choose it, either of us, you know? The whole … supernatural origins thing.”

Lucky nodded, like he’d expected this. “Right.”

It was spilling out now: he couldn’t have stopped if he’d tried. “And like, it was nice to hear I wasn’t the only one struggling with … with being what I am, and not knowing what to do.” He waved a hand. “There was other stuff, too. Like, you know, Yeshua was apparently always so good, and I used to be afraid that anything I would do would automatically be  _ bad _ because I’m the Anti-him.”

“But it’s not,” Lucky said with an encouraging nod.

“No. I’ve always had the choice. An’ when it’s obvious, I try to choose good.” He sighed. “But it’s not exactly obvious in this case though, is it? S’why I wish he were - I could talk to him, or something.” He threw his hands up into the air and then let them fall back against his shorts with a dull slap. “Get  _ some _ kind of idea, you know? He would  _ know _ .”

“Well …” Lucky stopped walking again, though this time he was looking down, fixedly, at a dandelion growing up through a crack in the curb. “Alright. Well. Here’s what I think about it, okay? And I’m not him, never will be, so take it for what it’s worth, but I think it’s pretty obvious.”

Adam frowned. “What? How?”

“First of all, let me be clear that I think murder is wrong,” he said, and ignored Adam’s muttered ‘ _ not a good start _ ’. “ _ But _ Hastur tried to kill you, in order to resume the end of the world, yes?” Lucky looked up, hands spread. “What happens during the end of the world?”

“Uh…” Adam blinked and then, as if he were reading off a page glued to the back of his eyeballs, recited, “The world is consumed by wrath and flame, and Heaven and Hell fight the final battle to determine who is ultimately victorious.”

Lucky nodded. “And the humans?”

Adam winced. “Mostly die.”

“ _ Right _ .” Lucky gestured to himself. “So Hastur wants to kill you, and by extension  _ everyone else in the world _ . Just so he can get the war that he wants.” He snorted with derision. “So  _ yes _ , Adam, we killed someone. A demon, that probably has killed many other people, and has for the past 2 weeks been attempting to murder  _ you _ in order to incite massive human casualty.” He gestured broadly to the town around them. “I’m gonna call it self-defense.”

There was a beat of silence. “That’s very American of you,” Adam said, finally.

“It’s practical.” Lucky straightened up, and looked to the distant figures of Crowley and Aziraphale. “Have you talked to them about this?”

“No.” He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “But they’ll say the same thing - I know they will.”

“So maybe that’s the right thing.” Lucky inclined his head toward the other two. “I mean, alright, they can be kind of … oblivious, sure, but they’ve been around  _ literally forever _ . You don’t think they maybe know a thing or two about gray areas of morality?”

They started walking again, and didn’t speak for a while, giving Adam time to mull that over. They were nearly back to the bench where the other two were still sitting - and bickering animatedly - when Adam said, “Did I tell you Aziraphale tried to shoot me?”

“ _ No _ ,” Lucky nearly gasped. “What?  _ Aziraphale _ ?” He looked from Adam, to the soft, frumpy angel on the bench, and back to Adam. “When?”

“During the end of the world. Crowley told him to do it.” He swallowed. “They were both scared that I was going to go through with it. They were willing to kill me to stop it.”

Lucky had gone a bit pale, though he kept walking, his eyes fixed on the two seated on the bench. “Well,” he said, weakly. “That answers that for you, then. Only I don’t think Hastur would have come around.”

“Probably not.” Adam shook his head. “He didn’t do it, obviously; Aziraphale was sharing a body with a lady, and she wouldn’t let him, on account of me bein’ a kid.” He shrugged. “But they were willing to. When they couldn’t shoot me though, an’ they realized I wasn’t too keen on ending the world anyway, they just talked to me instead.” They were close to the bench now, close enough to hear Aziraphale lecturing Crowley on something involving classic art. “And of course they’ve, you know … done their best to make it up.”

Lucky put his head to one side. Slowly, he asked, “So you trust them?”

“Now?” Adam laughed. “Yeah. Absolutely. Totally. I mean, I dunno if I have a guardian angel, on account of everything, but they might as well be. Well, angel and demon. I trust ‘em with my life.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Lucky sighed. “So there’s your answer, I guess? Like, right, yes murder is wrong, but to save the world …”

“Unless it’s a child,” Adam added. “Like, a little kid.”

“Well yeah, but it wasn’t, was it?” Lucky grimaced. “It was an  _ actual _ demon - a Duke of Hell! So I think you’re good.”

Adam nodded. “Yeah. I mean … I hope you’re right. You’re probably right.”

They had, apparently, finally come near enough that something about them caught Crowley and Aziraphale’s attention, and Crowley looked their way. “About what?” In unison, Adam and Lucky shrugged, with the universal air of ‘I dunno, you tell me’. Crowley frowned for a minute, but dropped the subject. “So have either of you heard from your mentors today? How many more days in beautiful Nebraska are we going to be here to see the sights and the lovely corn?”

“Actually,” Lucky said, pulling his phone from his pocket, “I got a text while we were walking, but I forgot to check it. Hang on.” He read quickly, eyes zipping back and forth. “Nah, nothing. Yet, anyway. They wanna have dinner tonight and talk over the plan for the next few days.”

“Next few - oh.” Adam blinked. “I’m going home in a few days, aren’t I?” He and Lucky exchanged a look. “Has it really been that long? It hardly feels like I’ve been here a week.”

“It’s been more than a week,” Aziraphale said, as if to be reassuring, but mostly sounding tired. “Believe me.”

Crowley slumped down further, letting his head loll over the back of the bench. “It’s been a long  _ two  _ weeks, as a matter of fact.” He nudged his partner with an elbow. “You know how I used to complain about how cold and damp it is back home? Never again.”

Aziraphale smiled dryly. “Never is a very long time, dear.”

“Alright. 20-year moratorium on complaints.” Adam, Lucky, and Aziraphale exchanged a look that suggested they would all be very surprised if Crowley made it twenty days. Perhaps, Adam thought, he could enlist Aziraphale’s help in monitoring the situation, once they were all home. They could make bets. 

If he got home, he added, in the privacy of his own thoughts. There was still the question of Michael.

“Do you think we can … you know … Do you think it’ll be safe for me to go home in a few days?” Adam asked, looking between his two godfathers.

Crowley, clearly trying to be his usually carefree self, said, “Well, once you’re back in England, Mr. Principality here has the entire island warded to the hilt, and Tadfield twice that.” Aziraphale glowered at him. “What? S’your job, don’t act like you didn’t want to do it.”

Adam sensed bickering coming on and cut in before it could get started. “Right, but before I even  _ get _ back, what if, like, on the airplane -”

“If Michael is going to act,” Aziraphale said then, slowly and calmly, “she will do so before you leave. There isn’t a chance of anything getting to you in England, and while Hastur might have had very few qualms about bringing down a plane -”

“No qualms, actually,” Crowley interjected.

“- I think even Michael would hesitate.” Crowley looked doubtful at that assertion, but if Aziraphale saw his expression, he ignored it. Adam nodded. “I have the sense that we all ought to be on our toes, so to speak, over the next few days.”

Adam looked to Lucky, worried. “You think we could talk Noel and Rachael out of any more chasing?”

Lucky shook his head in response. “And anyway,” he added, looking to the angel for confirmation, “sounds like storms or no, she’s gonna come after you. Probably. Right?”

“I’d imagine so,” Aziraphale admitted. “You may try to avoid storms, but there is the distinct possibility that they will find you anyway.”

“Right.” Adam took a deep breath. “Okay then. So … so what do I do? When it happens. I still don’t have a  _ plan _ .”

The pair on the bench shared a look. Lucky shrugged. And then, slowly, Crowley leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and looked up to Adam, yellow eyes visible behind the sunglasses from this angle. “You remember the air base?” Adam nodded. “We didn’t have any answers for what to do then, either, you know. Remember?” Adam nodded again. “But you came up with something. And I think you’ll have to do it again, this time.”

Aziraphale looked miserable. “I’m sorry, Adam, but I can’t give you the sword. I can’t raise that weapon against another person like that. Even if it is Michael.”

Crowley shook his head ruefully, and even though Adam’s stomach sank at Aziraphale’s words, he understood. He rather suspected that Aziraphale’s sword was made for one thing and one thing only, and honestly all of them would rather avoid any kind of out-and-out war. Or War, for that matter. 

“But just like last time,” Crowley added quickly, “we’re behind you, alright? You don’t have to try to do this alone, and you don’t have to try to keep all of us safe at the same time, either.” He smirked. “We’re adults, we can take care of ourselves, you don’t have to worry about that.” He nodded toward Lucky. “And I’ll get that one.”

Adam swallowed the lump in his throat while he nodded. He managed a wobbly little smile, too. “Are you adults, though?” he asked, with a weak laugh.

“Well.” Crowley slumped back again, his arm across Aziraphale’s shoulders and their knees bumping. “Adult-shaped. Bloody old enough to be, anyway.”

Lucky chuckled. “Old enough to be senior citizens. Super senior citizens.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell the girl at the pub in town!” Crowley threw up his hands. “But she never believes me, just laughs it off like a great joke and says, ‘Very funny, Mr. Crowley’.” He made a face. “Wonder how long we’ll have to keep going there before we get the special price on pints.”

Adam snorted. “If you’re hard-up for cash I’m going to be working at my mum’s office in records for the rest of the summer, I could -” Crowley kicked at him half-heartedly, and Adam side-stepped, out of the way.

“Don’t you have a meeting to be at?” the demon grumbled, while Adam laughed. 

“Not until tonight.” Lucky was laughing too. “They want to meet for dinner.”

Aziraphale folded his hands on his belly and looked around the park. “And so how many more laps around this park is that?”

Lucky grimaced. “ _ Ouch _ .” He made a show of looking around, arms spread. “I mean, what else is there to do? It’s a nice day, not like there’s anywhere to go for a walk unless you’re really into corn.”

“Not a big corn fan,” Crowley said. “Right. Well, I’m sure there’s some tourist trap around. I’d drive, if you’d like.”

Lucky sat down in the grass cross-legged, already pulling out his phone. “Let me look.”

-

The tourist trap was, in fact, the Golden Spike Tower. According to every map app they checked, it should take just shy of 2 hours to get there, less if traffic was good, and initially Lucky and Aziraphale had objected to such a long drive on the grounds that they’d get there and just have to turn right back around. But then, this was Crowley, and Adam figured with Crowley you generally took the estimated drive time and divided it by two. Aziraphale had grudgingly agreed with this, with some persuading, and eventually, driven by the lack of anything better to do, the four of them had gone off to spend an afternoon at the world’s largest rail yard. 

When he’d been a kid, Adam had never really had a train phase. Brian had, and Wensley definitely had, but Adam and Pepper were always just sort of peripherally involved Eventually, the other two had grown out of it (or mostly, anyway - Wensley still had some models in his room, carefully stored away), and trains faded into the category of ‘modes of transport’ and nothing more. Even so, from his position in the tower overlooking all of the trains, it was an impressive sight. He snapped a few pictures, and decided he’d send them along that night to the group, partially because he did think Wensley and Brian would genuinely enjoy it, but also just to prove he was fine.

Everything was fine. He just had to figure out how to stop an Archangel from killing him.

There was a little while on the drive back that Adam worried they’d run into a storm popping up out of nowhere - the clouds had gathered overhead, and the air took on the sort of haze it did before big storms. There was a little lightning, though no ground-strikes that he saw, and it turned out to be a passing cloudburst, scuttling off to the east by the time they pulled into the hotel parking lot. 

Probably, anyway. They had an entire hour before dinner, and so Adam spent a bit more time watching the lightning from his hotel window, just to be sure. Cloud-to-cloud, no leaders. Probably a passing cloudburst.

Possibly a warning.

Weather dominated the dinner conversation that night, as he and Lucky had anticipated. There were storms on the way, Rachael said, although Lucky and Adam hadn’t thought the radar that morning had looked particularly impressive. She seemed to think they’d be better to follow eastward, although -

“We can’t go too far east,” she said, pushing bits of her salad around with her fork and looking at Adam, “on account of we have to get you back to Texas by Saturday.”

“And not to mention that storm chasing’s miserable the more east you go,” Noel added, waving his knife around a little to make his point. “Too many trees.”

“That, too,” she agreed. “So anyway, we can go over the radar in the morning - I’m thinking early, like around seven, no later than eight - but maybe eastern Kansas? I thought that looked promising.”

Lucky made a vague noise of agreement around his mouthful of food, and Adam shrugged. “Sure. Sounds great.”

“Everyone okay to chase again?” Noel looked between the two students. “I know we’ve had a couple of down days, but I do think it looks good with the way the systems are going to be coming together. We should at least get one or two more tornadoes.”

Lucky managed to swallow his food. “I’m good,” he said quickly, and then after a glance at Adam, “We’re good. Ready.”   


“Good.” Noel beamed. “Great. Still gonna be real careful to stay out from under the tornadoes though - I’m all for pictures, but let’s stay safe, right?”

Rachael raised an eyebrow, looking at Adam all the while. “Strong agree.”

Adam still had half a plate full of food, but suddenly he didn’t feel very hungry. He set his fork down under the guise of pulling his phone out, and smiled weakly at Rachael before he looked down. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you know how hard it is to find interesting tourist attractions in Nebraska.


	29. Adam in the Corn

They left early: Rachael had checked the various models as soon as she’d got up in the morning, and was pleased to inform everyone during breakfast that mysteriously overnight, a tremendous, active system had started to organize and move east. The best area to target, she told them, was western Kansas, or possibly eastern Missouri, and Noel agreed. It looked, as far as storm cells went, very good.

Adam’s stomach dropped out the moment he saw it over breakfast. While Rachael and Noel chattered on at him and Lucky about the numbers and the radar, Adam was only able to stare at his food, leaving it untouched on the plate. 

It would be today. Lucky must have thought so too, because as they walked out of the diner and toward the truck, just before splitting off to go to their respective sides, he patted Adam once on the shoulder and said nothing. Adam took a deep breath, looked over toward the shiny black 4Runner, and climbed into the car.

“Huge system,” Rachael said again a few hours later, on the south side of the Kansas state line. She traced the outline of the building storm on the computer screen. “Look at it.” She whistled. “If a tornado doesn’t drop from this, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

It would, Adam knew, with a cold, heavy certainty. He took another deep breath, and looked back out of the window at the prairie grass whipping by, and the wide, blue sky.

Around two, the first tornado warning pinged on their phones. By then they were stopped for gas and lunch in eastern Kansas, just to the west of Kansas City. Lucky and Adam were sitting, waiting on a bench outside of a McDonald’s, while Noel and Rachael were back at the truck, neither paying particular attention to the computer until the alert went off.

“Well, there it is,” said Lucky, expression dark. They both looked down to his phone screen while he pulled up his radar app, and at the same time, they both winced. Lucky groaned. “It’s huge. If we get caught anywhere near the meso, we’ll never be able to outrun it. It’s a monster.”

Adam looked to their guides, twisting his hands together nervously in his lap. “I … You don’t think we can change our minds? Tell them we’re not up for it today?” He shook his head as soon as he’d spoken. “Forget it. Rachael already thinks something weird is going on with me. It’ll only make her more suspicious if I back out all of a sudden.”

“Well ... even so, it’s not like you wouldn’t have some reasons to be worried,” Lucky pointed out, his phone still open to the radar, showing the green-and-red mass of storm swirling its way toward them. Adam tried not to look. “Almost got struck by lightning, almost got hit by a tornado, lighting again … Not that she knows  _ why _ , but I mean, you could definitely make a case that you think you’re bad luck or something.”

“I am bad luck.” He kicked a pebble viciously and sent it tumbling across the parking lot.

“No,” the other boy said firmly, nailing Adam with a pointed elbow to the ribs .”You’re Adam. And Michael’s a dick.” Adam stared at him, and Lucky responded with a shrug. “What? It’s true.” He locked the phone screen - finally - and spun the gadget around in his hand once or twice, before he suddenly seemed to have an idea. “Let’s look at those texts from your friend again.”

Adam, well aware that he was wallowing in some miasma of sulking and anxiety now, and not particularly feeling obligated to stop, mumbled, “They won’t help.”

“What about this one?” Lucky held up the phone to show Adam the figure. “Says it’s for temporarily binding angels to a location -”

“Right. Temporarily,” he scoffed.

Lucky raised one dark eyebrow. “It would maybe slow her down though, wouldn’t it? Nothing wrong with buying time.”

Adam groaned and let his chin fall down, against his chest. He closed his eyes. “Maybe. But I probably wouldn’t do it right, just like the summoning circle -  _ ow _ .” He glared at Lucky for a second, and then reached down to rub his ankle, where the other boy had kicked him.

“So you let me and those two help,” Lucky replied, voice even and patient, while Adam rubbed some of the sting out. He inclined his head toward the far end of the parking lot, toward the lurking black 4Runner. “There’s no way they’re gonna let you go into this alone, anyway. Let’s ask them now - pretty sure one of them has seen that sigil before,” he added, a little dryly. His thumb hovered over the phone’s screen, and he watched Adam as he asked, “You want me to send it to Crowley?”

Adam thought about it. He chewed his lip, rubbed at his ankle (it didn’t really hurt all that much), and turned the idea over and over. As he gazed off into the middle distance, he could see that Rachael and Noel were packing up, and would spare an occasional glance toward the boys as they did. Thick, heavy clouds were gathering in the southwestern sky. It was time to make a decision, in more ways than one.

“Yeah,” he said finally, sliding down off of the bench and slouching upright. “Text it to Crowley.”

The decision Noel and Rachael made, Noel informed them after he and Lucky returned, was not to move, but to stay put and wait. “It’s coming right for us,” said Rachael, hands in her pockets as she watched the clouds with narrowed eyes. “If we wait a little, we’ll be all the wiser as to where the meso is, and where we need to be.”

Her computer was tucked away, but Lucky had his phone out again, and Adam glanced at the colorful radar map on the screen before hazarding, “It looks awfully big - we could move to the south, just to be safe?”

“Lemme see.” Obligingly, Lucky handed her his phone and she pinched in, zooming in on their location and studying the map. “Mm. Could, but look at that band of precipitation. Chances are, we’d just get caught in the rain and not end up seeing anything worthwhile.”

Adam swallowed. “It’d be a bit less close to the meso, though.”

“We’ll stay out of harm’s way,” Noel reassured him. “Promise. I know we’re all a little rattled still from that last tornado - that was way too close - but that whole storm was weird. We’ll be careful.”

“I know.” Adam stuck his hands deeper into his pockets and looked up to the sky. “Just … you know.” They did not know.

Rachael nodded. “Sure. That said,” she added, cocking one hip to lean up against the truck, “if there’s lightning, I think you should stay in the truck this time. Just in case.”

He breathed out through his nose and lied, “Yeah. I will.” Overhead, a tendril of cloud twisted into a circle, and vanished as soon as it had come.

“Might not be a lot of lightning,” Noel chipped in, trying to be encouraging. He gave Adam a warm smile, although Adam barely caught it, focused as he was on the clouds. “Big storms like this, you never know. Sometimes there’s so much hail and circulation that the lightning gets lost.”

Lucky answered that time, and he didn’t quite manage not to sound entirely skeptical. “We’ll see.”

-

An hour and a half later, the rain started coming down hard enough that visibility was reduced to almost nothing; all they could see was the soft yellow glow of the McDonald’s arches through the gloom. The four of them were huddled in the truck, Rachael with her computer open and the other three watching out of the windows. Adam was trying to see the clouds, but the rain was impenetrable, blowing nearly sideways as it was in the gusty wind. Above, another great fork of lightning leapt through the gloom directly over the truck. Adam winced, and Rachael swore. “ _ Jesus _ . It’s right above us!”

“No one touch the doors,” Noel reminded them. “Rach, what’s the picture look like? I’m feeling like we oughta move.”

“I think so too.” She clicked around on her computer, and Lucky leaned forward to peer over her shoulder. Adam took advantage of the distraction to look down at the other boy’s phone. There was a text from Crowley that had come in not long after Lucky had sent the sigil, and Adam had probably read it a hundred times by now. ‘ _ It’ll keep an angel in the circle for a bit - maybe an hour. Would be easier with a building or some kind of enclosure _ .’

Which did not mean, Adam had been continuously, desperately reassuring himself, that it would not work at all.

“Straight east,” Rachael said sharply, decisive. “That will keep us south of the meso the way this storm is tracking, but north of the worst of the precipitation. Might be some hail. Looks like it’s all farms that way, so at least we won’t have to worry about traffic.”

“Can do.” The truck grumbled forward, onto the road, and Noel poked along as quickly as he dared, which was not very quickly at all. While dreary shadows of buildings crept past, Noel chuckled, and said, “If there’s hail, I think I’ll stay in the car with you, Adam. Had enough hail on this trip.” Rachael snorted as Noel piloted the truck along the road, and after another block or two the dark shapes of buildings faded away. “Alright. East it is. Let me know if we should change.”

She never did. Noel drove quietly, while the storm crackled and thundered overhead. They only drove about fifteen minutes more before they were well out of town (such that it had been), and on an empty road hemmed in by cornfields. The rain had faded to a sporadic patter, and the sky was a sickly green-gold directly overhead, with the thick, dark clouds of the storm to the northwest. Although Rachael never said anything, Noel stopped. She didn’t say anything about that, either. 

Here, Adam could finally see the mesocyclone: it was rotating sluggishly, the clouds coiled into a fearsome structure. A tornado was practically guaranteed from that sort of storm at some point or another. As he watched, lightning jumped across the meso, searing a line of fire across the belly of the beast. 

“I should put a few probes out,” Rachael murmured, watching as bolt after bolt fired through the sky. 

“Not safe,” countered Noel immediately. “There’s too much - you could get hit just carrying one of the damn things.”

“It’s mostly cloud-to-cloud,” she started to argue, but when her partner gave her a stern look she put her hands up. “You’re right. You’re right. No probes.”

“I don’t even wanna get out to photograph,” Noel murmured, leaning forward on the steering wheel, the better to look out of the windshield and above. “You sure we’re alright here?”

Rachael nodded. “The meso’s to the northwest - unless it hangs a sharp right and comes straight south, we’ll be okay. It’s unlikely.” She exchanged a look with Noel, who appeared openly dubious. “I have my eye on it.”

Over the sound of the rain tapping on the truck, Lucky’s phone pinged with a text message. He made a curious little noise, and then nodded and handed the phone over to Adam. “Check it out.”

“Something interesting?” Rachael asked, half-looking over her shoulder into the back seat.

“Meme,” Lucky answered with a shrug. Adam looked at the phone - as he’d suspected, it was not a meme.

‘ _ Whats the plan? _ ’

Adam sighed. “That good, huh?” Rachael asked. A bolt of lightning cracked through the sky just in front of their truck, striking for the cornfields but instead arcing blindly out into nothing. “Shit! I wish I had probes out!” she snapped, slapping the dashboard.

“Yeah - oh, hey!” Noel was pointing northwest, still leaned onto the steering wheel. “Funnel ahead! Look at it! We got a funnel! Holy hell, it’s big.” 

Adam looked up from the phone. Sinking down from the mesocyclone that still hung to the northwest, deliberate and sure, was a wide, stable funnel. There wasn’t any of the roping behavior he’d seen with the other tornadoes, no elephant trunk-type intermediary. Just a huge wedge, half the size of the meso, lowering to the ground with steady purpose.

He nodded, slowly looked back to the phone, and texted, ‘ _ Come with me. Ask Aziraphale to protect Rachael and Noel _ .’

“That’s a fucking monster,” Rachael breathed. She looked at her laptop suddenly, frantic. “We’re not near anything, are we? Christ, that’s huge. Tell me we’re not near anything. I have to call it in.”

“Middle of nowhere,” Noel replied quietly. “Thank God.” He took in a deep, slow breath. “Look at that thing. You tracking it?”

It had touched down in the fields, and Adam estimated it was half a mile wide if it was an inch. Probably wider. Steely-gray, and massive, and ugly. 

It didn’t look like it was moving. 

“Is it wait - holding still?” Lucky asked, hastily glancing at Adam. “It seems like it stopped -” Adam thrust his phone back at him, and he shut up, looking down at the screen instead to read. He blinked once, and then looked at Adam, wide-eyed, mouth half open. Under the dark growth of his beard, his face was pale.

Noel murmured, “Not a good sign - usually means it’s coming toward you. Rachael? Track?”

‘ _ Me too _ ?’ Lucky mouthed, and Adam nodded. “If you want,” he whispered.

Rachael was tabbing through programs, her cell phone clenched between her ear and her shoulder as she tried to call the weather service at the same time, and Adam was only half-conscious of her making a frustrated groaning sound. “It’s acting weird, I wonder if the electricity -”

The sound the lightning bolt made when it struck the truck was deafening, and the light that preceded was blinding. They all screamed, Adam thought, although he wasn’t sure how he would have heard over the sheer noise of the bolt cracking into the metal body of the truck and running around them, finding ground through the rubber tires. The spicy smell of ozone filled his nose, and he blinked rapidly, trying to restore his vision to rights.

Lucky was still staring at him. “Now?” the other boy said, and he sounded like he was underwater. Adam’s ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that drowned out any sound of rain on the roof. 

Adam nodded. “Now.”

Rachael must have heard. “Now what?” she spun around in her seat, her phone dropping to the floor and her now-dead laptop sliding from her lap. “ _ Adam _ -”

He threw open the door, jumped out of the truck, and ran before she could get any further, or he could think any more about it. He didn’t bother to see if Lucky followed, just pounded down the road a little ways, just far enough to find a navigable slope leading down into the corn. He could hear, distantly, the sound of Rachael yelling after him, before her voice got drowned out by the rattle cornstalks brushing all around him, and the locomotive roar of the tornado getting closer.

The iron-colored wedge was looming even larger now. Adam ran toward it, squinting his eyes against the dust already blowing up around him. As he ran along one of the dusty furrows, Lucky caught him up, shoving his way through cornstalks. He drew up alongside, just on the other side of one of the rows, and yelled, “What the fuck are we doing?”

“Did you see that tree?” Adam panted, running straight and fast. “The one by itself in the field?”

Lucky didn’t answer. He probably hadn’t - Adam himself had barely noticed it until just before he’d jumped out. But a tree meant a clearing in the corn, which would make his plan, maybe, just a little bit easier.

They burst out of the crops and into the glade around the tree, which was nothing more than a small ring of overgrown weeds the farmer had left unplanted. Adam’s chest was burning, and Lucky was gasping for breath, leaning down to rest his hands on his knees. A moment later, Crowley stumbled out of the corn too, not breathing at all. Ahead, the tornado appeared stationary, although it seemed to be growing, too. Still moving, then. Lightning was dancing around the top of it, bolt after bolt after bolt. 

“The sigil,” Adam managed to pant. “It had a circle in the middle, right? An enclosure?”

“Yeah?” Crowley looked around the clearing as if just noticing it. “Oh, hang on -” He looked to Adam. “You want to use -?” He trailed off and spun around, surveying the area. “Right. Alright. But there’s the other sigils around the outside.”

Adam nodded. “In the corn. Fast.” Crowley looked hard at Adam for a second, just a blink, and then nodded, understanding.

“Huh?” Lucky blinked. “Wait, like a crop circle?”

“Exactly like a crop circle.” Crowley pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them into the pocket of his jacket.

Lucky was staring between the two of them. “But - but people that do that have boards and ropes and stuff. I mean, I can run but it’s not gonna work as well as -”

Crowley smiled. “Leave it to me.”

All in all, Adam thought Lucky handled his childhood nanny’s transformation into a sixty-foot-long, demonic winged serpent fairly well. Of course, that might have been because at the moment, there was also a tornado bearing down on them, almost certainly with an angry archangel at the helm. But still, he only screamed a little, and as soon as the transformation was complete, he stopped, fading into stunned silence. Crowley flicked his tongue out, got his bearings, and slithered off with careful consideration into the corn.

There was something funny about him in that shape, Adam thought. Different. But, well, he couldn’t put his finger on it, and now wasn’t exactly the time to try.

After he’d had a moment to gather himself, Lucky asked, shouting over the roar of the wind, “What about us?” He just about managed to finish the question, too, before he yelped, probably because Adam lunged his hand into his shorts pocket. “Dude!”

“There was stuff in the middle of the circle,” Adam said, finding the photo on the phone in short order and blowing it up as big as he could for one last look. “Grab sticks. We have to try to finish it before that gets here.” He pointed to the tornado, and then shoved the phone back against Lucky’s chest, taking off while the tall boy fumbled not to drop the thing. Adam ran toward the tree, bounding through the weeds and snatching up any stick he could find. 

“I don’t know where to put them!” Lucky yelled, but he jumped into action anyway, gathering up anything that might be big enough to serve their purpose. Around their clearing, stalks of corn were being bowled over in an intricate, exacting pattern, accompanied by the sound of Crowley’s scutes sliding across the soil and the crops. 

“Just grab them, I’ll take care of it!” Adam shouted. He was laying sticks out now, as best he could, using the tree as a central focus. At one point, three or four bolts of lightning cracked horizontally over their heads, spanning the width of the circle, but he just closed his eyes against the blinding flashes and went on, running and throwing sticks down in what he hoped was a suitable imitation of Anathema’s pattern. When he ran out of sticks of his own, he grabbed Lucky’s gathered armful, and hurtled on.

Another bolt of lightning split the sky, and Adam could smell the crops burning - like ozone and popcorn, he thought distantly, of course it would - before he fully registered that this bolt had stuck straight down, just past the edge of the corn to their north, and cut into the ground, throwing up stalks of corn and clods of dirt. The crops, even wet as they were from the rain that had preceded the tornado, started to burn.

“Very cute.” Adam didn’t look right away - he didn’t need to, he knew who it was - and instead carefully laid down the last stick in what he hoped was the right position before he looked up to study his work one last time. “An admirable attempt, anyway. You know it only works for a very short time if you manage to activate it, yes?”

“Yeah.” He might have missed something, probably missed something, but he was out of sticks now and had nothing left to do but believe he was close enough. He turned to face Michael, and found her on the very edge of the clearing, standing at attention, hands folded behind her back and wings half-cocked, as if ready to take off. Though the wind was whirling all around them, kicking up dirt and blowing Adam’s long hair into his eyes, she stood resolute. Utterly still. Her feathers fluttered gently in the wind, like they were caught in nothing more than a light breeze. 

Crowley slithered out of the corn to Adam’s left, re-entering the circle the same way he’d left it. He froze when he saw Michael. The Archangel sneered. “How’d you get back here so fast?”

“Good luck,” Crowley hissed, slinking slowly forward once more, eyes fixed on the angel. Behind her, the tornado towered over them, a full mile wide now. No one would escape. Adam hoped Aziraphale had convinced Noel and Rachael to move, and head somewhere safe.

Well, safer than here. He hoped here would be safe too, but … No. No, he told himself. It would be. Safe as houses.

“Archangel Michael,” he started, and his voice only shook a little.

Michael tried to smile, but it ended up looking like a thin snarl. “Ah, here we go.” She looked up, toward the sky. “Better hurry up, child.”

“I hereby bind you -” he stumbled over the words for a second, but then he felt Lucky’s hand on his back, just between his shoulder blades, followed by the cool, reassuring bulk of Crowley’s tail behind his knees. He swallowed and started again. “I hereby bind you to this circle, being a circle that will hold angels for a time of one hour,” he yelled, over the howl of the tornado. 

The sticks, and the sigil around them, lit up: a brilliant coppery light, tinted with green. Michael looked surprised, enough to look away from the three of them for the barest of seconds and study the area around her. It had worked. Adam felt his knees wobble with relief, and Crowley’s tail propped him back up, Lucky lending additional support. 

“Well,” said Michael calmly, and in spite of the fact that the tornado was barely a hundred yards away now and thunderously loud, she hardly looked mussed, and her clipped voice was plainly heard. Adam and Lucky swayed against the wind. “Nice work, I suppose.” She made a show of looking over her shoulder at the vortex bearing down on them. “However, there is still the matter of that.” She turned back to them, not bothering to try to smile anymore. “I’m afraid you won’t fare as well as I will, whether you’re a nephilim or not.”

“You’ll discorporate,” Adam screamed. He couldn’t hear anything now, barely could hear his own voice over the roar of the wind. He’d dug his sneakers as far as he could into the wet soil but he was still sliding - had been sliding, rather. He could feel Crowley wrapping his tail around his and Lucky’s legs now, could feel the other boy shaking even as Crowley constricted around them, pushing them close and holding them in his coils. “You’ll discorporate, because your body is just mostly human!”

“It only  _ looks _ human,” Michael corrected. “I am, Adam Young, an Archangel, if you will recall.”

She spread her wings, the tornado at her back. She was right, Adam thought, his eyes burning from soil and the debris and fear. She was right, of course: she was an angel, and angels didn’t work like humans. They could travel on lightning, they could be summoned or bound with spells, and they could fly.

Birds could fly, too, though. And suddenly, Adam remembered that he knew how they did it.

“Yeah. You can fly,” he murmured. He and Lucky were wrapped to their hips now, and he could see Crowley watching him, his massive wedge-shaped head cocked between the boys and Michael. “You have to be light to fly, you know,” he said, a little louder, although the wind was so deafening he doubted anyone heard him.

Nevertheless, Michael scoffed. “No, you don’t. We’re angels.”

“And you can fly, even when you’re in mostly-human bodies,” he repeated, faster. “You can fly, but it’d have to be like a bird, and birds can fly because they have hollow bones -” he elbowed Lucky. “It’s the only way if you have a body! You have to be light - you have to be light enough to fly!”

He was fairly certain Lucky was staring at him, and for a bare second he feared the other boy wouldn’t see his angle. But then, screaming next to Adam’s ear, Lucky yelled, “Yeah! Yeah, you have to be light! Only way it works, if you believe you’re light enough!”

Michael stumbled forward out of her rigid posture and for the first time, she looked worried. Not afraid, but definitely worried. Adam grinned. “That’s not how it works,” she warned.

“That’s  _ exactly _ how it works!” Adam crowed. “You’ve gotta believe - and  _ we’ve _ gotta believe - that you’re light enough to fly, Michael, which means there’s no  _ way _ you could stay grounded through a tornado!”

Michael stumbled forward again, falling to her hands and knees, her expression now considerably more than just worried. For the first time, Adam saw something like fear flicker across her face. Her wings snapped shut behind her, reducing her lift, but still she was sliding in the wind around the base of the tornado, so close that Adam could see the hard line where the thing met the ground.

She looked up at him, teeth bared, fingers dug into the grass, and said, “ _ Neither can you _ .”

Adam beamed. Crowley had them well-wrapped now, and his arms were pinned to his sides, but he still found enough room to wiggle one hand out and pat the demon on the back. “Yep,” he said. “That’s true. But Crowley’s a demon, and you know demons can’t fly, no matter what.” He giggled, because this was daft, and insane, but as he watched Michael scramble against the wind in the grass and felt the Earth stay steady under his feet, he thought it just might work. “Demons fall.”

The last thing he saw before Crowley, apparently, decided that he’d had enough, was Michael’s face as she gaped at him. But then he was wrapped tight over his head in a dark pile of coils, while the wind screamed around them. They  _ were  _ sliding in the dirt now - he could feel them sliding - and Lucky was yelling, but they stayed on the ground. They stayed on the ground even as he felt Crowley twitch in surprise, accompanied by a muffled, barely-audible shout of surprise from Michael, followed by nothing but howling wind and then, after some period of time that might have been hours but was, likely, just seconds, utter silence.

In the silence, Adam dared to hope.

Gradually, Crowley’s coils loosened and dropped away. Adam realized he had had his eyes closed, and cautiously, not sure what he would see but comforted by the feeling of Lucky beside him and Crowley still wrapped around his legs, cracked open his eyes.

A canopy of red and black feathers was arched over them, stark and vibrant against a clear, blue, cloudless sky. He looked down to the ground, into one massive, golden eye, and blinked. “What -”

He didn’t get a chance to finish before Crowley let loose an irritated hiss and dropped the two of them out of his coils completely. Adam’s legs wobbled and he fell to his knees, arms limp at his sides, while Lucky teetered over backwards beside him. The wings never moved, never wavered, but after a moment the giant serpent they were attached to vanished, and eventually, Crowley twitched them back into place behind his back. “How,” he said slowly, stalking around to face Adam, “the bloody fuck did you come up with that?”

Adam swayed a little, and managed a shrug. “Dunno.” He probably ought to look at Crowley properly, but he’d finally realized what he’d noticed earlier but hadn’t been able to name. “What happened to your wings?”

Crowley stared at him, not quite smiling. “Later,” he said, finally, the limbs twitching and rustling behind him, before he moved to Lucky, leaning over the boy. “Hellspawn? Alright?”

“Are we dead?”

“No.” Crowley looked up to Adam for a minute, and he  _ was  _ grinning now, before he looked back down to the other boy. “No, we are not.”

“Oh. Great. Then I’m fine.”

“Think you can stand?”

“Definitely not.”

Adam snorted, feeling the threat of giddy laughter bubbling up inside him in spite of it all. “Same, honestly.”

“Well.” Crowley straightened up and dug around in a pocket, plopping his glasses firmly back onto the bridge of his nose once he’d found them. “Get yourselves together; I hear yelling.”

Adam listened, and sure enough, after a beat he heard his name and Lucky’s being shouted with some degree of panic through the corn. “Rachael and Noel.” His shoulders slumped a little with relief, and a happy little giggle did slip out then. “They’re alright.”

“‘Course they are, you told Aziraphale to take care of them.” Crowley grabbed him by the elbow - carefully, gently - and helped him back to his feet. “He took care of an entire town, two humans is nothing. The tornado didn’t even whiff them.”

“But they remember -”

“He always forgets that part,” Crowley sighed. “Did Anathema ever tell you about her bike? Never mind.” He spread out one wing and cocked the leading edge of it under Adam’s arm, where his hand had been a moment ago, leaving him able to provide Adam support while freeing up both hands to pull Lucky off the ground.

“Did we just survive a tornado?” Lucky asked, half-falling again, though this time he landed with his arm around Crowley’s shoulders and managed to stay upright. “Adam, did you just make us survive a tornado?”

Adam blushed. Cautiously, he shrugged off Crowley’s wing, and took a few unsteady steps on his own before finding his feet a little more securely beneath him. “I mean,” he said, as they slowly made their way back the way they’d come, through the stalks, “Crowley did most of that part, really.”

“What’d you do to Michael? Just shouted her out of existence?” Lucky asked weakly, watching the ground as if it might jump away from him. “Did she die?”

Crowley shook his head. “Discorporated, I’d imagine. It takes more than that to kill an Archangel.” He looked over to Adam, still smiling. “But if I had it at a guess, I’d say she won’t be back for a while.”

“Nice of her to take the tornado with her,” Adam snickered, stumbling over a rut in the dirt and only managing not to fall when Crowley’s wing - the right one, that had always been the broken one, hadn’t it? - snapped out and caught him in the chest, before gently pushing him back onto his feet. “Crowley, seriously, your wings -”

“You like ‘em? I’m still not sure about the red.”

Adam opened and closed his mouth once or twice, a few choked, half-sounds bubbling out while he looked over the black and red feathers, before managing, “ _ What _ ?”

Crowley shrugged. “Tell you later - it’ll wait. I think you’ve got a couple of humans up ahead that need to talk to you a bit more urgently. Here.” Deftly, he ducked out from underneath Lucky, foisting him off onto Adam instead. “You’re on your own with this one. You can deal with Michael like that, I’m sure you can explain yourselves to them.” He nodded his head toward the road, where Noel and Rachael’s voices were quite clear now. Adam had more questions, but his brain was having a bit of a difficult time getting his thoughts in order, and before he could construct anything comprehensible Crowley had once again changed forms, this time to the more customary, regular snake, and slipped off into the corn.

They stumbled out onto the shoulder of the road a second later, silent and supporting one another. Noel saw them first and sprinted over, taking Lucky’s weight off of Adam and looking them up and down more than once, pale and dumbfounded. “You’re alright?” he asked, weakly. Rachael was behind him, running full tilt, and Adam didn’t look away from her, though he did manage a nod for Noel. Apparently satisfied, Noel started back toward the truck, nursing Lucky along slowly. 

He briefly wondered if Rachael was going to punch him; she certainly looked like she might. But instead she grabbed his shoulders, her grip like iron, and looked him up and down just as Noel had. “ _ How _ ?” she demanded, finally, after spinning him around too, just to make sure the back of him hadn’t hidden any secrets. He kept his eyes down the entire time; he wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was there when she looked at him. “Adam?” She shook him a little. “Adam,  _ how _ ?”

At length, he did look up. He expected to see anger, fury even, or suspicion or hate. Surprisingly, there was none of that. Well, he amended, noting the furrow of her brow, maybe a little. But mostly there was concern. Concern and relief. 

In a low voice, she asked, “Are you a human?”

That, at least, he could answer. He grinned. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.” She looked unconvinced, and he stepped back, steadier on his feet now, the better to gesture at himself. “Totally human.”

Noel, not so far yet that he couldn’t hear, barked out an incredulous laugh. “You weren’t serious, Rach, where you?” he called over his shoulder, before he shook his head and continued, loud enough for Adam to hear. “ _ Christ _ , what the hell were you two thinking? When I said we needed to move I didn’t mean  _ run toward the thing _ .”

“I -” Adam started, but he stopped rather quickly. He looked to his feet again, half-sunk into the muddy berm, and shuffled his shoes in the grass a little. Quietly, he mumbled, “I can’t tell you.” He took a deep breath and met Rachael’s eyes once more. “But it’s over now. No more running into storms. I swear. It’s over.”

Rachael was half-glaring, half-boggling at him. “How’d you two survive?” she asked, her voice clear and loud in the peaceful quiet of the now-calm afternoon.

Adam opened his mouth, ready to answer, but a bark of laughter from Lucky stopped him in his tracks. “Because we’re  _ lucky _ ,” said the other boy, snorting and giggling and, a little unsteadily, making a finger gun toward the sky. “Get it?”

Noel just grumbled in response, “Let’s get you sitting down, boy,” before guiding Lucky a bit more hurriedly back toward the truck.

Adam made to follow, but Rachael was at his shoulder, and when he moved to take a step forward, she shifted her weight and blocked his way. He looked back to her face to see she was still studying him intently.

“What are you?” 

“Adam Young.” He shrugged, and he couldn’t help cocking a crooked smile. “Just a human.”

“I don’t believe for a second you’re  _ just _ anything, Adam.” She jerked her chin toward the cornfield. “You should have died, both of you. How come you didn’t?” He didn’t answer, and although she did her level best to stare him down, he still had enough adrenaline zipping through his veins that he found it easy enough to meet her eyes without flinching. Eventually, her expression softened. “At least give me a hint, so I can put in the brochure that we won’t be hosting any more … whatever-you-ares? My heart can’t take it.”

“Oh.” And then he laughed, too loud and too hard but he couldn’t help it, it felt so good. “Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s only one whatever-I-am, and it’s me.” He took a breath. “An’ for what it’s worth, m’sorry. Never really expected any of that to happen. But it won’t, again. Promise.”

She side-eyed him. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Can I make you believe me?”

“I don’t know,” she asked, tone sharp, “could you?”

He blinked and then shook his head, saying again, more carefully, “Put it this way: is there something I could do to  _ show  _ you you can believe me?”

Back at the truck, he could see Noel helping Lucky into the back seat. Cautiously, he started toward the vehicle as well, and this time Rachael didn’t move to stop him, instead walking backwards, facing him all the while. She crossed her arms over her chest, and looked sternly at him, before flickering her gaze up toward the sky.

“Make a cloud appear. A harmless cloud.”

Adam sighed and spread his hands. “Sorry. Can’t control the weather.” She scowled, and he did his best to look apologetic. “I can’t.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said, and she couldn’t have sounded less convinced if she’d tried.

Finally, she turned away, heading toward the passenger’s side of the truck. As she did, something mischievous stirred in Adam, and before he even knew what he was saying, he had muttered, “Not anymore.”

She stopped and spun back to him. “What? What’d you say?”

Adam blinked, surprised as she was for a minute, before he relaxed into an easy smile, the one that always had got him out of trouble in the past, and that he was going to bank on now. “Said I’ll get your door.” He stepped around her, opened the door of the truck, and gestured grandly inside.

It took another minute before she climbed into the truck - Noel had already posted up in the driver’s seat and buckled in - and even as she did, she scarcely stopped watching Adam. “Are you a wizard?” she asked quietly once she’d sat down, still not breaking eye contact, her voice barely audible over the roar of the engine when Noel started it up.

“I didn’t go to Hogwarts,” Adam answered.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said, with the same beaming smile, and, ever the gentleman, closed her door.


	30. Symmetric Col

When an angel discorporates, they are automatically brought to the common area of Heaven: a sort of celestial lobby, if you will. From there, the angel is expected to proceed to their designated body distribution point (which lesser angels  _ did not ever _ refer to in jest as ‘discorporation station’) and begin the lengthy process of filling out paperwork and waiting. 

Archangels do not go to the same place as common angels do when discorporated. It wouldn’t do, Gabriel had decided very early on, to be seen being sloppy in front of the rank and file. Michael had always agreed with the sentiment, and by popular vote they had convinced Raphael to arrange things so that in the event of discorporation, the Archangels would return to their respective offices, rather than the lobby.

Michael expected this, and so when she materialized in her familiar office - her shoes clicking on the white tile floor - she was already turning for the door. But something stopped her before she could even get started: something gray, and lavender, and smiling. Gabriel was sitting at her desk. Behind him, perched comfortably on the filing cabinet, was Sachiel, her hands folded in her lap.

“What are you doing here?” Michael asked, drawing herself up. Although Sachiel didn’t react, Gabriel looked the very picture of stunned hospitality, the ‘who me?’ going unspoken but so clear from his body language and expression that actual spoken language was unnecessary. “Yes, you.”

“It’s funny,” Gabriel said, after he apparently recovered, and shared a quick glance with Sachiel, “I was about to ask you the same thing. Did you get  _ discorporated _ , Michael?”

“I - well, yes. Obviously.” She moved to turn away once more. “So I’ll be needing a new body straight away -”

Sachiel asked, her tone dry as any desert, “For what?”

Michael stopped again. “What?” This time, her tone was lower, tinged with a hint of danger. She turned to face the other angels, eyes narrow. “In the event an urgent errand is needed for Earth, or -”

“Well, I  _ am _ the messenger, traditionally, and I’ve not heard a thing.” Gabriel spread his hands. “We were just asking, of course. I can certainly put a rush on it, if need be.”

“It’s the antichrist, and Aziraphale, and that blasted demon,” she replied shortly. “They’re up to something. I’ll need a new body -”

“Not for killing anyone, I hope?” Gabriel asked, smiling sweetly. Sachiel was smiling too, but hers was narrow. More calculated. Michael glared at her, but curtly shook her head for Gabriel’s benefit. He nodded. “No, of course not. That would go against God’s plan.”

Startled, Michael looked away from Sachiel, to Gabriel, her mouth open. “O - _ Oh _ ,” she said, when she’d managed to get her thoughts in line. “God’s plan? You have an idea what that is now, then?” she sneered. “Did Raziel grace you with some new knowledge?”

Sachiel opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything Gabriel chuckled. “No, nothing explicit. But, well … if they were meant to die, they would have, wouldn’t they? It would hardly need our direct intervention - you know what happened last time. God arranges all as it should be.”

“And I wouldn’t presume to interpret your question about the plan to mean you’re doubting Her, hm?” asked Sachiel smoothly, her voice quieter than Gabriel’s and her gaze never leaving Michael.

“Of course not,” she snapped back. “But have either of you considered that  _ our _ direct intervention would be how God intends Her plan to be carried out?” Gabriel’s smile wobbled a bit, though Sachiel’s expression didn’t change. “Honestly, Gabriel, this is getting ridiculous. Ever since that brat cut Armageddon short, you’ve lost your touch.” She glowered. “Don’t think I didn’t hear about your little homily on free will last week*.”

[*  _ To be fair, she probably shouldn’t have; Duma had certainly not said a word to anybody, but the Quartermaster had just happened to be in the head offices for a meeting with Sandalphon, and he always had been  _ quite _ good at eavesdropping _ .]

The smile dropped entirely from Gabriel’s face, replaced with a stony expression and a stubborn set to his jaw. “If God’s plan dictated that we should kill Adam Young, then we would know.” He squared up his shoulders and stood from his seat behind her desk. “We knew about the flood, we knew about Yeshua, we knew about the plagues … If we’re meant to do something, we  _ know _ .”

“We knew about Armageddon, too,” she replied hotly, glaring at Sachiel behind him, still seated on the filing cabinet. “It was written.”

“In the humans’ books.” He jabbed a finger toward Michael’s neat collection of various Holy Books, one of which presumably contained The Great Plan. She’d never actually bothered to read them - Gabriel had given them to her, apparently they’d been sent to him by that traitor -

“Aziraphale.” Distaste dripped from her tone. “This is about him, isn’t it? Him and his boyfriend. I didn’t think you and he -”

“No,” said Sachiel, at the same time Gabriel said, “No, but he’s a perfect example.” He looked away from Michael for a moment, just long enough to make eye contact with Sachiel, before turning back to the other Archangel. “She didn’t want him dead, and in spite of our intervention ... how else can you explain it?” Gabriel shook his head and continued with some urgency, “And if She didn’t want him dead, then She approved of the averted Apocalypse -”

“ _ Aborted _ apocalypse.”

“- and so it’s not  _ time _ yet.” Gabriel made a fist, the better to pound it against her desk. “It can’t be time! We can’t explain it any other way.” He hissed in frustration. “Armageddon was just a test. She wants more from us, we’re not ready -”

“For the last time,” Michael growled, stalking one step toward the other two, and away from the door, “the Host was perfectly ready.  _ Ready _ had nothing to do with it. What  _ happened,  _ was a bunch of snot-nosed juvenile humans decided they were more important than the Great Plan, and since then no one’s taken the initiative!”

The two facing her didn’t flinch, though Sachiel arched an eyebrow delicately. Gabriel regarded her from his position behind her desk, expression cold. Quietly, Sachiel said, “If we were meant to take initiative, we would know. You knew, when you cast Lucifer down, didn’t you?”

“Of course; She told me -”

Sachiel smirked. “There’s your answer.”

Michael glared. “The Plan was  _ written _ .”

“And,” Gabriel replied, his tone just as icy as Michael’s, “Raziel has pages and pages of notes  _ written _ about things that have happened or are to happen after.” They glared at one another in silence, before something changed in Gabriel, and suddenly he was smiling again. “Speaking of pages.”

He held out his hands to pull from the firmament a stack of forms. Michael couldn’t read them from her position, but no matter. She knew what they said, anyway.

“The paperwork for your new corporation.” He said as he set the papers on the desk with a heavy  _ thump _ . Behind him, Sachiel was still smirking, and she slid from her seat on the cabinet to her feet, hands folded primly in front of herself. “I’m afraid we won’t be expediting any requests for new corporations at this time.”

Michael looked from Gabriel, to Sachiel, to the paper, and then back to Gabriel. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Oh, extremely so.” He clapped his hands together, apparently satisfied with a job well-done, and walked around the left side of her desk, making for the door. “What’s the rush, after all? There’s nothing on for the -”

“It’ll be 100 years before I have another body!*”

[*  _ She wasn’t wrong, but she was also not aware that 100 years, in terms of the issuance of bodies, was practically overnight delivery; the average angel, when discorporated, could plan on at least two to three centuries of waiting. And that’s  _ after _ they finished the paperwork. _ ]

They had moved past her now, and were standing between her and her office door. Gabriel had a hand on the doorknob, but paused there, turning back and shrugging. “Like I said: what’s the rush?”

“You both ought to Fall,” she spat, “You’re protecting the adversary, I know you’re doing it, I saw that demon’s wings, and Gabriel I know about you and -”

“If we are to Fall,” Sachiel cut her off, her smile thin and brittle, “I promise, Michael, you will be the first to know.” 

“Oh.” Gabriel reached into his jacket’s breast pocket, and produced a long, elegant, golden quill pen - far too long to actually have fit in his pocket were it subject to silly things like physics. “Here. You’ll need this.”

She didn’t take the pen. “I have my own.”

“Okay.” He shrugged again, and tucked it back wherever it had come from. “Don’t forget to take breaks to get up and stretch your legs; you wouldn’t want to get blood clots.”

“You need  _ blood _ to get blood clots,” she replied tightly. 

“True.” He opened the door and ushered Sachiel through, before he himself ducked out backwards, smiling at her the whole way. “But you might take advantage of the time to get into the habit.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

-

It was late by the time the storm chasers decided to stop, somewhere across the state line into Missouri. Lucky had slept most of the way, while Rachael and Adam had both sat in uniform silence, despite Noel’s occasional attempts at puncturing the tension with a casual remark or a joke.

They found a diner, out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by crop fields. It was called ‘The Garden of Eatin’. Adam wasn’t sure how he managed to keep a straight face as they walked in, although he could hear Crowley in the 4Runner, parked a few spaces away, absolutely screaming with laughter, even though the car’s windows were closed. If he strained, Adam thought he could hear Aziraphale, too.

Lucky still seemed groggy when they sat down, perusing the menu with nothing like his usual enthusiasm, eyelids heavy. “You okay?” Adam asked, paging through his own menu.

“I will be,” the other boy replied with a yawn. “Just need some sleep tonight, I think.” He shook his head, dark hair flopping around, and then stood up. “I’m gonna go splash some water on my face, try to wake up. Get me something with caffeine, would you?”

“Deal.” Adam watched him go for a little, and then turned back to his menu, pointedly not looking at the two storm chasers across the table from him. Noel was by all appearances completely absorbed in the menu, but while it was expansive, it wasn’t nearly big enough to take so much time to read.

Rachael, on the other hand, was watching him. He didn’t meet her eyes, just took his time considering the food options and ultimately, deciding corn fritters sounded like something that would suit him fine for the night.

Lucky returned not long after and while the hair around his face was a little damp, his eyes were brighter. He slouched into the seat and picked up the menu with more enthusiasm, and Adam breathed a little sigh of relief. 

No one said a word until the waitress finished taking their orders. The diner was fairly empty - only a couple other tables had anybody seated, and by all appearances those were lone travelers - and the jukebox was playing some upbeat pop song Adam didn’t recognize. Someone in the back of the restaurant, probably a cook, was singing along.

Rachael and Noel glanced at each other, and Adam braced himself. “Guys,” Rachael started, a little hesitantly, before she laid her hands flat on the table and went on, “uh. Well, first of all we’re both very glad you’re alright.” Adam nodded and forced a smile, although he reckoned he knew exactly what was going to come next. “And it’s been fun chasing with you - you both have a knack for it, I have to say.” She swallowed. “But I think that in light of the events today, we’re going to be done chasing for the rest of the trip.”

Adam kept his expression neutral, and felt Lucky shrug beside him. “Okay,” said Lucky.

The storm chasers looked from one boy to the other, both clearly a little surprised. “Okay?” Noel repeated, incredulous. “No problems with that?”

“Probably a good call, honestly,” Adam said. “All things considered.”

Rachael and Noel looked at one another again, with Rachael being the first to break away, shrugging and turning back to the students. “Of course, we’re happy to teach you about data interpretation over the next few days, since I did get some really interesting lightning stuff -” she shot a quick glance at Adam, “- but I think for safety’s sake, we’re calling an end to the storm hunting.”

“Not to say,” Noel said quickly, “that if we run into something with lightning we won’t slow down and maybe stop to drop a probe -”

“We’ll talk about it,” Rachael said, tightly. “But I think the remainder of the trip will be mostly didactic. I hope that’s alright with you.”

Adam sipped at his soda, and wondered if this was the most relaxed he’d been since the trip started. Possibly. Likely. “Fine with me.”

“No arguments here,” Lucky seconded. “Think I’ve had enough excitement for one trip, to be honest.”

She blinked at them. “Honestly? I thought you’d push back more.” She looked at Adam and pointedly did not add, ‘ _ Especially you _ ,’ although the inference was clearly there.

“Nah.” Adam slumped forward, his elbows resting on the table. “I’m tired, honestly. It’s been … well, fun, a lot of the time, and terrifying some of it, so I’m okay with just doing lectures. Seriously.” He cocked half a smile at her and Noel, and then looked back down to his soda.

Noel patted the table and smiled. “Well, alright then. Glad that’s settled. It’ll be a shame to miss anything big that might come up, but there’s always another one.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Alright, ‘scuse me a minute, just gonna go wash up.”

Rachael watched him walk off, maybe ten paces, before she turned back to the two boys, watching them warily. “Alright. Talk.”

“About what?” Lucky looked to Adam, confused. “About what we learned? ‘Cause I definitely learned more about the -”

She was already shaking her head. “ _ No _ . The tornado. How did you two survive it?”

“Oh.” Lucky was still looking at Adam, and after a second, he shrugged. “Dunno. Any ideas?”

Rachael frowned. “I have my theories.”

“I’m not a wizard,” Adam repeated tiredly, surprising a laugh out of Lucky. Rachael’s frown deepened. “Or a cryptid, or an alien. Or a sasquatch.”

“Not nearly enough hair,” Lucky agreed solemnly.

“Do either of you work for the government?” she asked, quickly and hushed, her eyes darting around the diner in case anyone was watching. “Secret tech researchers or something? Lucky -”

Adam shook his head. “I work at the Tadfield Arms, bussing tables. That’s it, I swear.”

“I don’t have a job.” Lucky’s expression turned thoughtful. “I should probably get on that.”

“So how,” Rachael said slowly, leaning in, “do you explain the … the lightning, and the tornadoes, and I  _ know _ something happened with that first tornado that almost hit us, I just can’t remember.” She glared at Adam, just a little. “Besides, you’re both born in the same town.”

“Weird coincidence, that,” said Adam, with a nod.

Rachael glowered. “It’s all very strange, isn’t it? One might even say …  _ high _ strangeness.”

“Huh? No!” Lucky sat up a little straighter, affronted. “I’ve been totally sober the entire time.”

Adam sighed. “That’s not what high strangeness is, Lucky.” He waved a hand around vaguely. “It’s usually like, you know, aliens and men in black and abductions and stuff.”

“ _ Oh _ .” Lucky laughed again, shaking his head. “Nah. Not an alien, unless you count being born in another country and moving here at eleven.”

“I do not,” Rachael confirmed. “But I just - that tornado today, that  _ hit you _ . And you both walked out without a scratch, right before the entire storm just  _ dissolved _ .” She threw her hands up. “Straight into clear skies! Why’d you run in? How did you do it?”

Neither boy answered, not for a while. After a while Adam said, slowly, “Well, I can’t say why we ran in. Um. Sorry, I really can’t. I think I’d get into a lot of trouble if I did. But we won’t need to do it again, if that’s any consolation.”

“Not much of one,” Rachael admitted. 

“But as far as how we got out, uh …” He shrugged. “Guardian demon, I guess.”

Lucky was giggling. “You mean angel?” Rachael asked. 

Adam glanced toward the kitchen and the restrooms, and could have cheered when he saw Noel walking back their way. Salvation. “No,” he said, “I didn’t, really.”

“Lucky?” Noel asked as he sat down, jerking his thumb toward the kitchen, “did you see the cook while you were back there?”

“Hm?” Lucky raised his eyebrows. “No.”

Noel shook his head. “Weirdest thing, he looked just like Elvis.” 

Adam turned his head toward the kitchen, trying to see, but through the gap where the food would be set out he could only see a broad back, round shoulders, and hear the faint sound of someone humming along to the song on the jukebox. “Huh.”

Their food came not long after, and Adam tucked in. Although Rachael watched him the entire meal, she didn’t ask any other uncomfortable questions. The conversation moved on, normal as it could possibly be all things considered, through their dinners and the milkshakes ordered for the road. 

Adam waited, once they arrived at the motel, for Lucky to fall asleep. It didn’t take long - they’d barely crossed the threshold before the tall boy collapsed face-first into the bed and started snoring. He waited a bit longer and watched, just to be sure, and then snuck back out to the parking lot. 

His godfathers hadn’t come in, and in fact were still in the 4Runner, Aziraphale reading placidly and Crowley half-asleep in the driver’s seat. Adam knocked on the window, but rather than just roll it down, Crowley stumbled out, swaying on his feet for a minute before he slouched back against the car, hands in his pockets. He sniffed. “What’s up?”

Adam looked around - nothing but corn and a gas station and parked cars for as far as he could see - and stuck his own hands into his pockets. “What happened?”

Crowley looked around too. Aside from Aziraphale, who was carefully placing a book-mark at his page, they were alone. “Nothing. Why? You mean today? Did you forget?”

“No, not today.” Adam snorted. “I know what happened today.” He gestured toward Crowley. “To you. Your wings. That wasn’t … I mean, I don’t think that was an illusion, was it?”

Crowley sighed. “It was not.” He looked to his right, and to Aziraphale, standing at Crowley’s side, smiling. He looked to be, as far as Adam could tell, entirely relaxed.

“So what happened? You said later.” Adam looked upwards, toward the night sky, where stars twinkled against the black backdrop. “It’s later.”

Aziraphale’s smile melted to a frown. “What are you - oh.” And then, if it were even possible, he smiled again, even warmer this time. He reached over and took Crowley’s hand, and though the demon grumbled like he wasn’t happy about it, Adam could tell he also squeezed Aziraphale’s hand in return. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Nah, not yet.” Crowley looked over toward the front door of the motel. “Where’s Lucky? I should probably tell you both. Has to do with both of you, after all.”

“Asleep,” replied Adam. “Hit the bed and was dead to the world when I left.” He fought back a yawn. “And I’d kind of like to do that myself, but I couldn’t stop wondering.”

“Yeah.” Crowley, still holding Aziraphale’s hand, took a second to arrange himself in what was apparently the ideal slouching position. “Right, well, I can tell him later, I suppose.” He cleared his throat, and looked at Adam over the rims of his glasses. “I, er. Well, when I discorporated, there was a … a bit of supernatural wheeling and dealing, let’s say.” He waved his free hand vaguely. “Since you did what you did with Armageddon, things have been different, we knew, but I had no idea  _ how  _ different. Ah, but anyway, seems like the whole … Heaven-Hell dichotomy is all getting a little muddled.”

Adam couldn’t help but grin. “Oh yeah? Imagine that.”

Aziraphale’s eyes crinkled happily. “Yes, rather. It seems, if I interpreted everything correctly that -” He stopped, because Crowley was staring at him. “Right. Sorry. Go on, dear.”

“ _ So anyway _ ,” Crowley went on, still glaring at Aziraphale as he started, before turning his attention back to Adam, “I got intercepted mid-discorporation by a few of the higher-ups from both Upstairs  _ and _ Downstairs that feel similarly to you vis-a-vis the continuation of the world as we know it. And since Michael and Hastur were planning to restart everything via killing you, they were sort of opposed to that happening, but they couldn’t show their hand directly without touching off all kinds of bloody mess.” He slumped a bit. “And neither should Michael and Hastur have, but that’s besides the point. Point was, no agent of either side could do anything directly -”

“So that’s why  _ I _ had to do it.” Adam fixed his wide-eyed gaze on Aziraphale. “That’s why I couldn’t use your sword.”

“Yes, yes it was.”

Adam nodded before turning his attention back to Crowley. “Okay. But then, where do you come in? How’s that got anything to do with your wings?”

Crowley sighed. “Well, they were a bit worried about you not really having a guardian angel in your corner. Never assigned you one, when you were a baby, on account of -”

“Being the antichrist?” Adam asked, eyes twinkling in the starlight.

“Yeah, that. And Lucky never got one because everyone  _ thought _ he was the antichrist, even though  _ apparently _ the celestial rosters or whatever listed him as being in need of one. Should have been a clue. Anyway.” Crowley jerked a thumb toward Aziraphale. “This one’s busy protecting the whole damp collection of islands we call home -”

“ _ Crowley _ .”

“Am I wrong?” He watched Aziraphale, half-smirking, and when the angel didn’t reply after a beat or two, he grinned. “Didn’t think so. Right, anyway, so since the  _ actual angel _ was busy, and they reasoned that I’ve been pretty much keeping an eye on you since you were eleven, and, er, since I don’t officially work for Hell or anybody else anymore…” He trailed off, and then shrugged again. “Bit of a free agent, I suppose. So they signed me on to ah, do the official guardian thing.”

Adam blinked. “So … so you’re saying I  _ actually  _ have a guardian demon, not a guardian angel? They didn’t make you an angel, right?”

Crowley made a face and stuck out his tongue, like he’d tasted something particularly awful. “No. So yes. Guardian demon.”

“And your wings were part of that, somehow?” 

“Guardians have to be able to fly,” Crowley replied. “They wrote it into the contract.” He looked down at his boots. “We’ve known for ages that the only ones that can do anything about the wings were Raphael and, well,  _ God _ , so naturally I just sort of assumed that they’d be broken for eternity. Most demons’ are.” He shrugged. “But then it turned out Raphael wasn’t exactly eager for the end times to roll around either, so …”

Adam nodded, understanding. “So you got your wings back. And they work.”

Crowley made an uncertain noise. “Maybe. Haven’t tried, honestly. What you said about angels and demons today, you know, there’s something to that, I think. Might be -”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, his voice full of gentle warning. Adam was already shaking his head.

“That was just for then. I had to believe it, didn’t I?” Crowley didn’t look convinced. “But it’s not true. Angels don’t really have hollow bones -” he and Aziraphale exchanged amused looks, “- and demons don’t always fall.”

“Usually -” Crowley started.

“ _ Usually _ ,” Aziraphale cut in quietly, “demons’ wings aren’t restored to working order by an Archangel.”

Crowley looked between the two of them, as if deciding how best to argue against the formidable team Adam and Aziraphale made, on the rare occasion they took a side against something they both felt strongly about. Ultimately he must have decided it wasn’t worth it, because rather than argue, he half-sighed, half-groaned and said, “We’ll see.”

Things were quiet then, for quite a while. Crickets chirped, the occasional truck would pass by, but neither Adam nor either of his godfathers spoke. Eventually Adam moved to stand next to Crowley, likewise leaning up against the 4Runner. He cast his eyes upwards, to the sky, and although Aziraphale and Crowley initially joined him in his impromptu stargazing, Crowley pulled out his phone after a minute or so. “And,” the demon said, breaking the silence and startling Adam back to Earth, “I also got this app that tells me where you are every second, so no funny business.” He waggled the phone in Adam’s direction before dropping it back into his jacket pocket.

Adam snorted. “There really is an app for everything.”

“Yeah, well, hopefully it works. Can’t imagine anyone in celestial IT will be particularly willing to take my calls if it doesn’t, and I can’t be in two places at once.”

“I could call for you,” Aziraphale offered. Crowley looked at him, bemused. “Ah. Right, I suppose they wouldn’t be much more willing to speak to me, either. Well. It was a thought.”

“I’ll figure it out. Haven’t needed it, yet.” He took a deep breath and turned his face back toward the stars. “So anyway. That’s what happened.”

Adam mulled it over. “That’s pretty cool, actually. I’m glad you didn’t go to Hell.”

“Me too.”

The cornstalks to the east waved gently in a soft breeze, and Adam watched them while he thought some more. “Does this change anything else? About you, or me, or Lucky or, you know. Anything?”

“Not really,” Crowley replied, more quickly than Adam had expected. “I’ll just automatically know when you’re in trouble now, I suppose. I mean, I assume so.” He looked down to the boy sternly. “Don’t give me a reason to find out. Please.”

“Okay. But only because you said please.” He smiled at the way Aziraphale chuckled over that, but his face fell as another thought occurred to him. “You, uh … Can you find out  _ everything _ I’m doing?”

Crowley winced. “Maybe, but rest assured, I won’t. Just the life-threatening stuff. Or grievous bodily harm.” He glanced toward the pocket where his phone was. “Wonder if there’s a setting for that.”

“I can help you look later, if you like,” Aziraphale volunteered. “You know, I think there’s an  _ app _ ,” he said the word like it was some kind of foreign concept that he was struggling with*, “for Principalities as well. On the company smartphones. But I never turned mine on.”

[*  _ Which, to be fair, it was, for Aziraphale _ .]

“That does not surprise me in the least,” Crowley sighed. Adam just giggled. “Anyway. So. That’s what happened.”

Adam sagged a bit as he felt the metaphorical weight lift from his shoulders. “Yeah. Thanks for telling me. And, um. For everything else, too.” He blinked furiously, because tears were threatening to well up in them, and they burned as he fought it. “I don’t know what I would have done if you guys weren’t here,” he said, voice breaking. 

“Now, that’s enough of that.” Aziraphale managed to produce a handkerchief from some pocket or another, and handed it to Adam. “Besides, dear boy, all available evidence indicates that you likely would have been just fine.”

Crowley nodded. “We didn’t do much.”

Adam was rubbing his eyes furiously with the handkerchief, but at Crowley’s assertion he snorted. “Yeah, right. You guys stopped that tornado, and kept me from being struck by lightning, and gave us Hastur’s sigil for the summoning, and helped me with Michael, and kept Noel and Rachael safe, and … and all sorts of other things, I’d expect.”

“Stalked you,” Crowley said.

“Well, yeah. That.” Adam laughed wetly, covering his entire face with the cloth. “But I reckon I don’t really mind that, on account of how things ended up going.” He lowered the handkerchief a little, the better to look back and forth between the two of them. “‘Course, if no one had tried to kill me I probably would’ve been kind of angry.”

Crowley rocked back onto his heels, made one of the noises he tended to make when he was thinking, and said, “Well, I’m not going to say good thing someone tried to kill you, of course.” Aziraphale was glaring at him. “I didn’t say that!  _ But _ , I will say I guess even if it meant stalking, things turned out alright.” He raised an eyebrow. “And I don’t have to stalk you anymore, in the future.”

“Good.” Adam nodded. He dabbed at his eyes, determined to be done welling up for the night, partially because he was suddenly so tired that he wasn’t sure he could cry even if he wanted to. “That could get awkward one day.” He shuffled his feet, looking down at his sneakers as he did. “Noel and Rachael said we’re not chasing anymore for the rest of the trip.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. “Probably wise, from their point of view. Do they … suspect anything? Other than what Rachael already did.”

“Rachael thinks I’m a wizard.” He made a noise that was half a groan, and half a sigh, while Crowley snorted and Aziraphale chuckled a little. “Whatever. I’m not. And if nothing else weird happens for the rest of the trip, she’ll be alright. You think she’ll forget about it, like people forget you?”

“Probably,” Crowley answered, after the two of them looked at one another and apparently considered the question. “Humans don’t like things that don’t fit in with how they’ve always been told the world works. She’ll probably remember parts of the trip, remember that things were dangerous, but, well, no one can survive the eye of a tornado without protection, right? So she’ll convince herself she mis-remembered it or something.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t worry.”

“Okay. Good.” He blinked muzzily at them a few times. “I’m really tired.”

“Of course you are,” Aziraphale said. He took back his handkerchief, tucked it away, and then put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Would you feel better if we were physically present? It’s no trouble.”

Adam turned to look at Crowley. “Well, I mean … you have that app, right? You’ll be able to see if we’re alright?”

“Haven’t actually used it yet,” Crowley replied with a shrug. “But we can sit outside like we’ve been doing. I’ll fiddle with the blessed thing tonight, figure out how it works.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be good then.” For a second, Adam thought about stepping backwards, toward the hotel, but at the same time he felt an ache in his gut. Homesickness again, or something like it. “It’ll be really good to see my family again. I mean, I feel like a little kid saying it, but after all this, I just … just sort of want to hug my parents and Dog and sleep in my own bed.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Which is very normal. Adam?” Adam watched as the angel stood up a little straighter. “Would you like a hug now?”

In spite of himself, Adam snorted. “You hate hugs.”

“I am offering.”

He should say no. Aziraphale was  _ notorious _ for hating hugs, mostly because it seemed so incongruous with the entire angel thing. Then again, from what Adam had seen so far of angels, they weren’t really the huggy type all around. 

He nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

For all he hated hugs, Aziraphale was actually quite good at them. He was soft, and warm, and you couldn’t help but feel safe. Some of the tension Adam hadn’t realized he’d still been holding, cramped up in his shoulders, seeped out, and he relaxed even more, leaning against Aziraphale’s shoulder, eyes closed. 

Crowley wrapping his arms around the two of them wasn’t exactly unexpected, either, and because Adam suspected his motives weren’t the same as Azirphale’s had been, he laughed softly. “Felt left out?”

“Yup.”

“You’re making this very awkward, dear,” Aziraphale admonished. 

“Yes. I know.” He backed off, and a moment later Aziraphale released Adam, gently putting his hands on the boy’s shoulders to prop him back up on his own feet. “Alright?” Adam nodded, and Aziraphale smiled in return. “Good. Off to bed with you.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” His feet started to shuffle backwards, carrying him toward the front door and, eventually, sleep. “Good idea. Thanks, guys. Really. Forever. Don’t think I could ever repay you.”

Aziraphale waved him on with a little shooing motion. “Then it’s a very good thing we don’t require any payment at all. Good  _ night _ , Adam.”

Adam paused, then smiled and turned so that he was walking forwards, towards the hotel. As he did, he called back over his shoulder, “Goodnight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coming in for landing here ladies and gentlemen. take a breath, grab a drink, and relax, touchdown is in 2 more chapters


	31. Homebound Wind-Down

The rest of the trip - what few days remained - were spent making their way leisurely back to Austin, stopping at a few tourist traps on the way, and reviewing data. The lightning data in particular was proving especially challenging, mostly because the strikes that Rachael had recorded over the trip - as well as all the videos they’d taken - showed lightning behaving in very unorthodox ways indeed.

“No one will ever be able to reproduce any of this data,” she grumbled one afternoon, the four of them seated around a picnic table outside of a mini golf place Lucky had somehow talked them into. Rachael, as was customary, had pulled her laptop out of the truck as soon as they’d sat down for some post-golf ice cream. “Which,  _ of course _ they won’t, because it was some of the best strikes I’ve ever got. Maybe will ever get again,” she added, with a look at Adam.

“Data’s data,” said Noel, oblivious to Rachael’s glare and Adam’s carefree smile. The older man poked at the near-solid dome of his bowl of strawberry ice cream with a spoon; even in the heat it was holding its own, the very beginnings of melted rivulets just starting to run down the outside. “It’ll get washed out by statistics in the end as outliers, if it really is that weird.”

Rachael scowled. “I should just throw it all out.”

Noel shook his head, still poking at the ice cream. “Don’t do that,” he admonished, although he was clearly only half paying attention. He looked up from his treat to Adam and Lucky, both of whom were quietly occupied with their own ice creams - Adam had gone with a plain chocolate scoop in a cone, and Lucky with Moose Tracks in a waffle cone. “All good?”

“Mhm.” Adam nodded as he looked back up, and didn’t miss one last, quick frown from Rachael. “Yeah, this is fun. Thanks.”

Noel chuckled. “Glad you two seemed to hit it off - we’ve had groups that were at each other’s throats the entire time, which really adds a whole other layer of complication to the business.”

“Oh, no.” Lucky was shaking his head. “No, yeah, this worked well, I thought. Uh.” He looked to Adam. “It was really cool getting to know you and uh, hang out.”

Adam looked at him for a second while an expression that was half-grin, half-stare crept onto his face. “I’m serious about you coming to visit Tadfield some time, you know. And who knows,” he added, already making a suggestion before he really thought it through, “I could come to DC. I mean, if it’s -”

“ _ Fine _ . Yeah, it’s totally fine.” Lucky beamed. “Awesome. I mean, working in DC sucks, but there’s a bunch of cool stuff to do there with the museums and all.”

“And Tadfield’s not all that far from London.” Adam fought the urge to laugh. “Which is cool. I know this really great bookshop we could go to.”

Rachael glanced up. “Noel, didn't that guy you met at the spa while we were in Colorado own a bookshop in London? Wonder if it’s the same guy.”

Adam bit the inside of his cheek firmly to keep from laughing. “Probably not. London’s full of bookshops - I mean, what are the odds?”

“Fair.” She looked back down to her computer, her expression once again growing perplexed. “I am never going to make this data work. What  _ is _ this number, even?” She shook her head and trailed off into distracted muttering. Noel sighed. 

“Never a dull moment.” He looked up: the sky was blue, and there were fluffy white clouds floating slowing across it, and not a single one of them threatened a storm. “Any objections if we take a breather here a while? Kind of tired of driving, and we’ll be able to make Austin tomorrow in plenty of time.”

“None from me,” Adam answered, as he and Lucky shrugged at one another and shook their heads. “No, no objections.”

“We could play another round of mini golf,” Lucky added hopefully, elbowing Adam.

Noel smirked. “Could. Actually, though, I was thinking it might be a good time to have a little quiz on what you all learned this trip.” As one, the two students groaned. “Come on, guys, you had to know it was coming - this is supposed to be educational, right?”

“We haven’t even had time to study!” Lucky protested, to which Noel responded by spreading his hands and looking vaguely, if mockingly, insulted. 

“What have you been doing for the past couple of weeks?” He watched Lucky carefully, but the other boy apparently didn’t have an answer, and settled down from stammering wordlessly to glowering. “Alright, Whoever answers the most questions right wins. Winner gets dinner on me tonight.” He folded his hands. “Rachael, feel free to butt in with any questions you think of.” She didn’t answer, still absorbed in her data, and Noel shook his head before he started. “Alright, so first question starts off easy: which direction do most tornadoes in the northern hemisphere spin, and why?”

-

Adam hadn’t cried when he’d left England, and he was determined not to do so at the Austin airport. Even so, he had a lump in his throat and a curious fullness in his eyes as he stood at the curb in departures, facing Noel, Rachael, and Lucky. 

“If either of you ever come to England, let me know,” he said to Noel and Rachael as they all said their goodbyes. His voice cracked, but nobody acknowledged it. “We could meet up, get coffee, whatever.”

“Visit your secret lab?” Rachael suggested, and Adam laughed. She’d been speculating at him for the better part of the morning as to his true nature: her current theory was that Adam was a government agent sent to test a secret device that manipulated weather. He’d been somewhat reluctant to dissuade her from it, mostly because it sounded rather fun. He’d texted the theory to Anathema too - they had been exchanging a few messages since the Michael incident - and she was fully supportive, even going so far as to give him some suspicious phrases he could drop into conversations to make it more believable. 

“Yeah, sure. I’ll show you the top-secret government lab that I work in, for sure.” He shook his head. “It’s called ‘Tadfield Arms’, and they do a good Ploughman’s.”

Noel snorted. “Nice meeting you, Adam. Stay in touch. And safe.” He and Adam shook hands, Rachael surprisingly offered a hug, and then they stepped away, giving Adam and Lucky a minute together. 

Lucky had been watching Aziraphale and Crowley, who were both seated on a bench and hidden behind newspapers, trying to be inconspicuous. After Noel and Rachael climbed back into the truck, however, he shook his head and sniffled, just a little. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“Well,” Adam said slowly, conscious of the dampness now at the corners of his eyes. “I dunno. I think with Crowley’s whole situation now, you might see them a bit more.”

“I’d better,” he responded, and crossed his arms. “What good’s a guardian demon if you can’t occasionally summon him to … to play video games or help with homework, or whatever?”

Adam nodded. “He’s really good at science, but terrible at English. They’re both awful at math, but Crowley’s better. Kind of. Unless it’s taxes.” He grimaced. “Honestly, though, you’d be better off with a tutor. Wensley had to help me through geometry.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lucky replied, laughing. Adam joined in too, for a little while, until the laughter died away and they both went quiet, surrounded by the hum of traffic surrounding them.

“You’ll let me know when you get home, right?” Lucky asked, after a minute.

“Yeah, ‘course. Same for you?”

“Sure.” He scratched at his beard. “And you’re sure you were serious about me coming to see … Well, you, sure, but I mean.” He swallowed. “Your parents.”

Adam nodded eagerly, and tried to surreptitiously wipe away a tear that had leaked out and started down his cheek. “They’ll love you. Promise.”

“I might be … it might be awkward.”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll manage.” He smiled. “You pick the dates - I’m living at home for university for now, so I can do whenever.”

“And we have to try to find the other one,” Lucky added, as he rubbed the back of his neck. “The third baby. Well. Person, now.”

“Right. I can get started when I get home - I’ll keep you updated with what I find out, yeah?”

“Yeah. Great.” His eyes shining, he looked back behind Adam once more, to Crowley and Aziraphale; when Adam looked over his shoulder to check, he saw they had both dropped their newspapers down a bit, the better to see the two boys. Although they had said their own goodbyes that morning - Crowley had stopped time at the complimentary continental hotel breakfast, which Lucky found very impressive and Adam and Aziraphale had thought was a little bit show-offish - Lucky waved again, with Aziraphale returning the gesture.

“Okay.” Lucky grinned, and held out his hand to shake. “Fine. Stay in touch. Tell them the same thing.”

“You too,” Adam said, clasping Lucky’s hand in his before finding himself pulled into a not-entirely-unexpected hug.

“Thanks for coming,” said Lucky, quietly. “Seriously. It was … wild, but I’m so glad it happened.”

“Yeah. Me too.” They moved apart again. In spite of everything, they were still both teenage boys, and therefore they immediately followed the hug by sticking their hands into their pockets and looking fixedly at the ground. “Glad it turned out the way it did.”

“No one dying? Yeah, me too.” With a sigh, the taller boy looked up to the dirty overhang of the drop-offs terminal. “Alright, well, you’d better go. Don’t wanna miss your flight. Um. And I guess they have to take me back to Lackland.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Adam looked up from the concrete and met Lucky’s eyes, hopeful. “See you soon, yeah?”

“Video chat you as soon as I’m home,” Lucky confirmed. For a moment, they just looked at one another, and then they smiled, and nodded, and Lucky started back to the truck, raising one hand to wave. “Safe flight!”

Adam grinned. “I’m sure it will be,” he said, before he turned and wove his way through the traffic, toward his godfathers and their flight home.

After Crowley had told him about his wings, Adam had assumed the other two might actually  _ fly _ home, and leave him by himself on the plane. As it turned out, however, Aziraphale had apparently brought luggage which he refused to deal with at all practically, and insisted on doing things the human way. Crowley had grumbled about it, of course, and complained, but ultimately conceded. 

Adam, for his part, was only a little surprised when, almost immediately after being told of their plans, he received an email that his ticket had been upgraded to first-class through a special promotion. It was nothing short of miraculous, but when he’d said as much to Aziraphale the angel had looked openly, honestly shocked. He might nearly have thought it  _ was  _ just a coincidence, until he’d caught sight of Crowley, who had been trying quite hard not to make any kind of eye contact* with anybody.

[*  _ So hard, in fact, that Adam was surprised the linoleum the demon was staring at hadn’t started smoking under the intensity of his stare. _ ]

Going forward though, he thought he should probably fly with them more often. Security just … didn’t happen. There wasn’t any kind of magic that he could see, just a general feeling of ‘ _ of course this is happening _ ’ as they waltzed through the fast-pass line and into the airport proper. “We were trying to avoid miracles on the way over,” Aziraphale explained, “and security was terrible. Someone should do something about it.”

“Make it go away, you mean?” Crowley looked intrigued. “Maybe I could -”

“You know, never mind, dear.”

There were three seats open just by the gate, and the plane was, of course, running precisely on time. Still, they’d gone through security so quickly that they had plenty of time, and Adam was starting to feel the pangs of hunger. He sat with them for a little while, bag between his feet, before he asked, “Mind watching this while I walk around a bit?”

“Sure,” answered Crowley, without looking up from his phone. “Whatever’s fine.”

Adam stretched as he got to his feet. “I’m just going to walk. Want me to get anything for either of you?” Crowley responded by handing him a twenty dollar bill and requesting the biggest coffee Adam could find, and Aziraphale politely declined. 

He wandered up and down the international terminal for a little while, hands in his pockets. There was a Starbucks, of course, but no Dunkin, which was slightly disappointing; he had been hoping to see what Crowley thought of Rachael’s brand of choice. He figured he’d get the coffee last, the better to keep it hot, and wandered on, eventually being drawn in by the smell of pretzels baking in one of the shops.

It was while he was waiting in line that someone approached him: a young woman, with red hair in a neat braid draped over her shoulder, and an oversized hoodie. “Hey, do you have a second?”

“I … do,” he replied, hesitant. He hoped this wasn’t one of those airport evangelists Anathema had warned him about. “Is there something you need help with, or … ?”

“I think we have some mutual friends,” she said, and the hairs on the back of Adam’s neck stood up. She must have sensed it, or maybe his expression changed, because she immediately held her hands up, open and placating. “Sorry, sorry, I know it’s creepy. Anyway, I’m just here to drop something off for you.”

His eyes narrowed. Suddenly, he was very aware of the press of people all around them, milling here and there on their way to gates and shops and planes. “What?”

“Just a letter, don’t worry,” She smiled, her tone calm and oddly soothing. “It’s from Yeshua.” Adam’s eyes flew wide. Slowly, she reached into the pocket of her hoodie, and withdrew a cream-colored envelope, handing it carefully to him. “I don’t usually do messages, but everyone else was busy, so here I am.” She looked around. “Never been in an airport before, you know? Angel of travel, you’d think -”

“What’s your name?” Adam asked, holding the envelope in front of himself, watching it like he half-expected it to explode. Which, well, he did.

She smiled, and Adam wondered if it was an angel thing, that smile that was so comforting and warm, and so sad. Aziraphale did it sometimes, too. “You probably won’t see me again.” She put her hands up again when he winced. “Not like that! Not supposed to be ominous. They just don’t let me out, much.” She grimaced. “Too many miracles, they said.”

“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows, an unbidden smile on his lips. “What kind of miracles?”

She rubbed the back of her neck and mumbled something, before sighing and admitting, “Listen, I don’t care what they say, you can’t just  _ expect  _ me to walk past a children’s hospital without healing -” she stopped, because Adam was laughing now, and she smiled, less sadly and more amused. “Anyway. Internal politics, you probably don’t care. I’m just here to run the mail, this time.”

“Seriously,” he chuckled, turning the envelope over in his hands. He recognized the writing on the front: it was identical to Yeshua’s unique penmanship he remembered from Christmas a few years ago, when they’d spent the night talking and playing games. “What’s your name?”

“Raphael.” She offered her hand. “Nice to meet you, Adam Young.”

He stared at the offered hand. “Like … like  _ Archangel _ Raphael?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” She lowered her voice and smirked. “Don’t worry, I’m not like the other two you’ve met. I’m the cool one.” She inclined her head back toward the gate he’d come from. “Crowley’ll vouch for me.”

“I know.” He grabbed her hand, shook it, and then found himself pulling her in for a hug. Unlike Aziraphale, this angel seemed to welcome the gesture. “He told me. Thank you.”

She was much, much shorter than he was, and so when she answered, her voice was muffled, being that her face was pressed into his shoulder. “You’re welcome. Thank  _ you _ .” She pulled back and he let her go, Yeshua’s letter now crumbled and half-forgotten in his left hand. At arms’ length, she smiled at him, no sadness at all now, just pure joy. “Thank you.”

“I mean, my pleasure. I guess.” He shrugged. “Dunno. Wasn’t too fond about the world ending; I think that’s kind of a normal response.”

“You’d be shocked.” She sighed. “May I bless you? Safe travels and all that jazz.”

“I mean, if you want to.” He’d been blessed before, by Aziraphale, and had come to associate the gesture with a warm sort of tingling that he’d never been sure was really real, or if he had always just imagined it. This time, though, with Raphael’s blessing, there was no question: it felt like dipping into a warm bath at the end of a day out in the cold, or laying out in the sun on a perfect early summer afternoon. He must have gasped a little, because she immediately said, “Sorry.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, no,” he repeated, urgently. “Er. Just wasn’t expecting it. Aziraphale -”

Raphael chuckled and cut him off. “Probably has more practice at it, yes. It  _ was _ a little ham-handed, wasn’t it? It’ll do the trick though.” She took a step backwards. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you. I have to keep moving, or Raziel’ll tell on me. Again.” She pointed to the shop behind him. “Plus, you don’t want your pretzel to get cold.”

“Oh!” He turned around, only to see the boy behind the counter watching him boredly, holding the pretzel out. “Adam?” he drawled.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I -” he took the paper bag quickly and turned back around. Though he had had plenty of experience with angels and their ilk by now, he still hoped (though not expected) that he would see Raphael standing there. But sure enough, she was gone, and look around as he might, he couldn’t see any sign of her anywhere in the terminal.

“Thanks,” he muttered, to no one nearby. Slowly, he looked down at the letter in his hand again. He took a bite of the pretzel, and then fumbled the two items around, trying to keep the salt off the paper, until he managed to slip a finger under the flap and pop the envelope open. 

It wasn’t a long letter, but even so, standing in the international terminal at the Austin airport, it was a bit surreal to read. He read it quickly, his grin growing broader with every word, and when he’d finished, he had a giddy, light feeling in his chest that made him wonder if humans could fly, too.

It read: ‘ _ Adam, _

_ Hey there. I saw everything - solid work preventing the imminent apocalypse again; shame about Hastur, but every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, right? I think that’s a song. Anyway, don’t worry about it too much - Lavoisier got it right when he said energy can neither be created nor destroyed. No one, not even demons, ever really dies. We can only hope Hastur’s less unpleasant this go-round. _

_ And as far as Michael, she’s not going anywhere for a while, no worries: I have some friends on it. _

_ Anyway, I knew you’d be worried about everything that happened, and I didn’t want that, so I figured I’d drop you a line. I’m glad we got to meet a few years ago - Antichrist or not, you’re a good guy, and you’re doing good things. _

_ Peace and love, _

_ Yeshua _ ’

Very, very carefully, once he was finished reading, Adam folded the letter back into its envelope. Then, deliberately, as if he were afraid it might dissolve in his hands, he folded the envelope up so it could comfortably slip into his pocket. He finished his pretzel, occasionally patting at his pocket to make sure the letter was still there - really there - and when he’d finished, he wiped his hands off on a napkin and took the letter back out to read again, just in case. 

It took a few more read-throughs, and foldings and unfoldings, for him to convince himself the letter was not going to disappear. Eventually, he was fairly confident the letter wouldn’t phase out of reality, and so he placed it back into his pocket and patted it once or twice more before walking away from the pretzel stand. Although his feet were carrying him back towards the Starbucks, his mind was elsewhere. 

Everywhere else, really. His mind was on the Great Plains, listening to thunder roll and corn sigh in the wind, and in Tadfield's old chalk pit hearing the birds sing and the steady English drizzle patter on the fallen leaves. It was deep in the outback, listening to strange animals cry across the desert, and in the darkest reach of the Peruvian rainforest, where birds and monkeys hooted in trees and insects sang their stories. His mind was in a town in Africa, enjoying a warm night surrounded by a jovial group of friends, and in a not-so-different town in Thailand, where the food and the clothes looked a bit different but the companionship was the same. His mind was in a metro station in Poland, on the platform waiting for a train among all the people, good and bad (but mostly good), and in the Austin airport, surrounded by the same.

The letter a comfortable weight in his pocket, Adam smiled and walked through the airport, and through the babbling press of people all around him (good and bad … but mostly good), as they all went about the next day of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops a day late on this one! Sorry. I'm on vacation atm at just didn't get around to it on Sunday! But never fear ... here is the last proper chapter. I will do my level best to get the epilogue to you all within the next few days! For a little parting softness, and some final thoughts from me on this wild, wild ride.


	32. Epilogue

Adam’s homecoming was, as could probably have been expected, a raucous affair once they arrived back to Tadfield. There was a brief, quiet interlude for Aziraphale and Crowley after the three of them disembarked the hired cab at the Young’s house and Adam retreated inside to see his parents first and foremost. Crowley and Aziraphale strolled through the familiar dreary mist of home on their way back to Jasmine Cottage, hand-in-hand, savoring the quiet*, and the fairly certain knowledge that at least, for the moment, no one was trying to kill anybody. 

[* _Mostly quiet. The Guardiapp did alert Crowley with some degree of urgency that in Virginia, Lucky had stubbed his toe on an end table, but Crowley managed to figure out how to silence it after a profanity-fraught minute._ ]

Anathema had told Adam that the Them were organizing a celebration, and once they’d reached Jasmine Cottage the fruits of their labors were evident: streamers already soggy with drizzle were strung between bushes, a paper sign was psoted on the door, and happy, raised voices sounded inside. Crowley and Aziraphale’s arrival prompted further happy yelling, which was strangely comforting, even when the yelling intensified a couple of hours later, with Adam’s arrival.

The yelling died down, of course, a bit later, as Adam started to regale the assembled audience with the story of his trip. The Them, along with Anathema and Newt, listened raptly to Adam recount the storms, the near-misses, the tornadoes and the plotting. He told them about Noel and Rachael, and about _Lucky_ \- the other baby - and about Michael and Hastur. He left the bit about Crowley’s brief discorporation out, glazing over the events of that day with an easy wave of his hand, partially because at that point in the story everyone seemed upset enough without that addition.

Anyway, he’d agreed with Crowley on the plane ride over, it would probably raise questions that, at the time, Crowley wasn’t entirely prepared to answer.

When he told of what happened at the end, with Michael, the rest of the group gasped, and whooped, and gaped with open wonder. He glazed over the rest of the trip - the few days’ travel back to Austin and the airport and the flight - because what was there to tell, really?**

[** _Adam hadn’t told Aziraphale or Crowley about the letter, and assumed they didn’t know. They, in turn, hadn’t told Adam that Raphael had waved to them on her way to the pretzel stand, and brandished the envelope at them as she passed._ ]

The party went late into the night, eventually drifting out to the garden when Anathema and Newt started giving strong hints to the rest that they didn’t have to go _home_ , necessarily, but if they were going to stay at the cottage they’d better let the residents get some rest. Around four in the morning, even the Them had started to lose steam, and as a group they bid their goodbyes and plodded out of the garden and back towards their homes.

The other homecomings came shortly after: Crowley slid into his rightful place behind the wheel of the Bentley, cooing to the car while Aziraphale rolled his eyes at the display, arms crossed over his chest. He even huffed out a little sigh of disapproval, although Crowley didn’t notice in the moment, and the Bentley didn’t bother to rev the engine in response - it knew his heart wasn’t in it. Once they’d got home to the cottage in South Downs, their positions were reversed: Aziraphale padded through his library, making sure nothing had gone awry in their absence (it hadn’t), and Crowley grumbled off to the bedroom to sleep for a week, patting the angel fondly on the shoulder as he went.

-

They had been home for about a month when Aziraphale broached the subject of flying. The two of them were posted up in the library; Aziraphale had been reading, and Crowley was doing something on his phone*. Outside, it was a beautiful, clear night: stars were sprinkled across the whole sky, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. A perfect night, Aziraphale thought, for a test run.

[* _Specifically, fiddling with the Guardiapp, which was hideously designed and_ did _in fact send alerts any time Adam or Lucky did anything at all besides, apparently, sit blank and motionless, without an option to filter out the more mundane activities. Crowley would later take an online course in app development to see if he could fix the issue himself**._ ]

[** _This would result in him breaking the app irreparably, forcing Aziraphale, who had never used any of Heaven’s technology, to call the Information Services desk and hold until they found an angel who would be a) willing to talk to him, and b) able to help. Fortunately, the angel Gregoriel was nearby, and Aziraphale only had to hold for six hours before getting her on the line to resolve the problem._ ]

“Crowley?” He heard the demon make a little hum of acknowledgement, and cleared his throat. “May I talk about something with you?” _That_ got a reaction - Crowley immediately dropped his phone into his lap and looked up, a little wide-eyed. Aziraphale chuckled. “Nothing so dire, dear, please relax. It’s just … well, your wings.”

Crowley relaxed, just a little. “Oh,” he said, sinking back against the arm of the couch. “What about them?”

What Aziraphale had intended to start with was, ‘ _You never bring them out anymore_ ’, because it was true. Aside from letting them out for his week-long nap upon their return, Crowley had kept his wings firmly tucked away and out of sight. ‘ _I’m worried you’re having trouble adjusting_ ,’ he wanted to say, or ‘ _Is there something I can do to help you adjust?_ ’ Instead, what came out in a jumbled rush was, “Have you thought about trying flying again?”

“Er.” Crowley blinked slowly. “I … a bit.” He seemed to shrink in on himself. “You know, sometime when it’s the right time, one day.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Why n - do they hurt?”

“No.” Crowley picked his phone back up, and went back to whatever he’d been doing. “Just doesn’t seem like time.”

For the next year, Aziraphale dropped the subject.

It was the following summer before it came up again, and this time it was Crowley that brought it up. He was settled in to the guardian duties more by then, and had managed to fix the app to only show him what he deemed concerning. About three months or so after they’d returned home, he started letting his wings out more, not unlike he’d done before the America trip. He even let Aziraphale preen them a few times, and the angel was careful to be gentle, making sure Crowley knew that he loved his wings no matter what shape or color they were in (but he did think the red was particularly fetching). 

It was late August. They were out for a mid-night walk along the cliffs, hand-in-hand. Though the nights had begun to turn cool, warm thermals from the sea were gusting up the face of the cliffs, tossing their hair and jackets around. They stopped at a point probably about a mile away from the cottage, where the cliff jutted out over the stony beach below. There was no one in sight - probably no one even awake for miles around - and Aziraphale found himself leaning up against his demon. “Beautiful night,” the angel murmured, looking up at the stars.

“Bit cold,” Crowley replied, his free hand in his pocket. Another waft of seabreeze surged up the cliff face, and Aziraphale sighed happily, his wings fluttering into reality behind him to catch the air. 

“I think it feels lovely.” Hel cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “Such a wonderful night.” He looked over to Crowley, half-smiling, though there was an undercurrent of anxiety to it. “It would be perfect for a flight.”

Crowley swallowed. “Would be, yeah.” He wriggled his hand free from Aziraphale’s. “Go on.”

“I meant _together_ , Crowley.”

The demon certainly had known that was what Aziraphale had been inferring, but he acted surprised anyway. “What? Nah. Go ahead, I’ll wait here. S’fine.”

“Crowley.”

“You _never_ get to fly. Not that I don’t appreciate the company, but you don’t have to avoid it on my account -”

“Why are _you_ avoiding it?” Aziraphale challenged then, his mouth setting into a thin line. “Crowley? You _can_ now, you know. And I know it’s been an adjustment, but you can, and I can’t believe you haven’t thought about it. I _don’t_ believe you haven’t thought about it.” He cocked one wing around Crowley’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

For a while, Crowley was quiet, looking down off the edge of the cliff and toward the stones and waves below. Aziraphale rather suspected he knew what the answer was, but he waited anyway, with the patience of a rock. Eventually, Crowley muttered something unintelligible. “What, dear?”

“‘M afraid it won’t work,” Crowley repeated, only marginally louder, before making a frustrated noise and bringing his own wings into reality with a few irritable flaps. “It could be - could be a trick, or an illusion, or some big joke on a stupid demon -”

“It’s not,” Aziraphale said firmly. “Crowley, why would they -”

“Because!” He groaned. “Because they _can_ , because they knew I’d hope, or try, or be dense enough to think it’d be real.”

Aziraphale softened, once again taking Crowley’s hand in his. “I don’t think Raphael would do that to you, Crowley. Not after what you told me.”

“Could have been an act,” the demon responded, miserably. “And what about the whole ‘demons fall’ thing -”

“You heard Adam.” He smoothed the lapels of Crowley’s coat with manicured hands. “I don’t think you have to worry on that account. And to your other point, I don’t remember any of the archangels ever being particularly good actors. Not even Uriel.” He twitched his wings as he thought. “How about this: I’ll be here the whole time, and if it doesn’t seem like it’s working, I’ll catch you.”

Crowley scoffed. “Nah, I’m too heavy.”

“You know that’s not true.” Aziraphale tutted. “Come on, Crowley. It’s just the two of us, no one around to see, and I’ll be here if you fall.” He spread his wings, flapped once, and took to the air, swooping around in a small circle until he was facing the demon, hovering on the thermal rising up the cliff. “Crowley …”

For a second, he thought Crowley might do it. He certainly stepped forward, right up to the edge of the cliffs, wings spread, but once he was there, with the toes of his boots hanging over, he stopped. Grimacing, he took a step back. “Can’t.”

“Of course you can.”

“I don’t …” He trailed off, still looking down the face of the cliff. “I’d have to fall,” he said at length, sounding very small indeed. “I can’t take off like you did - my wings never worked like that. I’ve got to drop off the edge, catch lift, and _then_ glide.” It made sense, and Aziraphale realized he’d never considered that: Crowley’s wings were longer and thinner than Aziraphale’s, which were broad and stout, made for fast acceleration and maneuvering. Crowley looked to his right wing, now healed and fully-feathered and mobile. “I’m not sure I can do it, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale flapped closer, eventually cradling Crowley’s face in his hands. “I understand. But also, I know you can. Here.” He tucked his wings in and let himself drop perhaps fifty feet down the face of the cliff, before he caught himself and turned back to look up at Crowley. “How’s this?”

“For what?” Crowley called, still a good two feet back from the edge.

“I’ll be here - if you haven’t got lift by this point, I’ll grab you, take you straight home, and we can drink that nice riesling you bought last month and watch the Golden Girls until breakfast.”

Crowley stared down at him. “We could do all of those things _without_ me falling off a cliff, first.”

“You won’t fall.”

“I might fall.”

Aziraphale sighed. “You might fall, dear, yes. But what if you fly?” He looked expectant. “I can wait.”

It must have been a full minute, maybe two, before Crowley grumbled something too quiet for Aziraphale to hear* and took a shuffling, cautious step toward the edge of the cliff. It was another minute before he said, shakily, “Ready?”

[* “ _I can’t believe you’re talking me into this_.”]

“Yes. Are you?”

“Not really,” said Crowley, and he dropped.

He _did_ fall, for a given value of falling. But he’d scarcely gone ten feet before his feathers caught lift on the thermal, and rather than continuing any kind of downward trajectory he glided forward, watching Aziraphale with a shocked expression the entire time.

“Flap,” Aziraphale reminded him, helpfully, and Crowley did, his glide curving upwards with the lift. Aziraphale beamed and took off after him. 

Later, after three bottles of wine and a thirty minute detour on what it was that you never forgot how to do, Crowley would say it was sort of like riding a bike, except that riding a bike and flying are two very different things. Still. The principle, he would say, sloshing wine onto the rug, was the same.

But for the moment that discussion - and the bickering about who would miracle the wine stain out - was hours away. “You see, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, once Crowley had done a few experimental laps up and down the cliffs. He fluttered closer, the better to take Crowley’s hands. “I knew you could do it.”

Crowley went a bit red in the cheeks, and paused for a moment on a thermal, the two of them drifting upward by inches. “I mean, I wasn’t sure. Listen, I’d adjusted to the way things were, and to have that just sort of _change_ was a bit … a bit …” He floundered for the word and then gave up with one of his noises. “Never mind. You know what I meant.”

“I did.” Aziraphale’s smile was soft, and he folded his hands, not daring to touch Crowley quite yet. The demon sighed, and flapped, and dropped out of the draft, gliding once more along the line of cliffs.

“You know,” Crowley said eventually, the two of them gliding along as close to side-by-side as they could be, “I wonder if I could still do some of the things I used to do. Back, you know, before.”

“I’m sure you could,” Aziraphale replied, before he remembered who he was talking to, and added, “What things in particular?”

“Well, like this.” With several powerful beats of his wings, Crowley took off, now gaining altitude, and Aziraphale tagged along. It wasn’t long before they were high enough that the wispy clouds that had blown in off the sea seemed practically touchable, and the Earth itself looked like it was curving away from them. 

At that height, there wasn’t as much to provide lift, so they generated their own, circling in lazy figure-of eights around one another. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said wistfully, only half paying attention to his partner. “And think, we could do this at sunset, or sunrise, or even on a lovely day; it would only be a little miracle to keep people from noticing.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s tone was distracted, which seemed odd. Aziraphale looked over to him, and saw he was not looking out over the horizon, or the dark expanse of the Atlantic, but rather more _downwards_. He opened his mouth to say something - maybe this was too much, it had been too long - but Crowley cut him off, asking, “What kind of speed do you think I can get up?”

Oh. Well, that was a relief, in some ways, Aziraphale thought. And then again, it really wasn’t. “I don’t know that the first time out is the time to try -” he started, but before he could finish, Crowley had folded his wings in and dove. “Oh, bugger,” said Aziraphale, diving after.

The answer to Crowley’s question was: quite a lot. He plunged back toward the beach, and Aziraphale started to worry that maybe it _had_ been too soon, what if this was some kind of mental crisis, when suddenly Crowley’s black-and-red wings snapped out, caught the air, and the demon angled them just so, flattening his trajectory and then arcing up into a graceful, lazy loop-de-loop around Aziraphale.

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale admonished. It was all he could think of to say, because while Crowley had nearly scared the divinity out of him, the way the demon was laughing was enough to make Aziraphale thank God a million more times over for allowing them this. 

“Still got it,” Crowley crowed, ecstatic. “Really is like … you know, that thing you never forget, once you know how to do it.” He did a barrel roll. “I’ll think of it later.”

Aziraphale fluttered his wings, hovering nervously on a thermal and watching Crowley’s aerial stunts continue in the sky around him. “Dear boy?” he hazarded, realizing he was wringing his hands, and folding them instead. “Crowley?”

Crowley was flying back up again, barely using the thermal, his sleek, dark wings flapping quickly to gain the lift he needed. “Yes, angel?” 

“I’m thrilled to see you having so much fun,” he said, wincing as Crowley dove down again and then pulled up into a loop, before spinning directly into a barrel roll at speeds that, quite frankly, made Aziraphale feel a little queasy. “Really,” he called, as the demon zipped back by him the other direction at what Aziraphale hoped was top speed (even while knowing, with a sort of resigned dread, that it was not). “Crowley!”

Crowley whizzed by again, half in free-fall, this time on his back for a few hundred feet before he angled himself down, caught the thermal, and swooped back up. “Yes?” He glided in a circle around Aziraphale, almost lazily, smiling so widely Aziraphale thought maybe his face might stick that way. “Better than any rollercoaster, angel, don’t care what I said at Alton Towers that one time.”

“Yes, I recall.” Aziraphale frowned. It hadn’t been a good afternoon: Adam had talked them both into the front row on one of the rollercoasters, and Aziraphale had had to miracle half of the park’s memories muddled after the drop startled his wings into reality. The only reason he hadn’t flown out of the cart had been the safety harness. He shook himself. “Yes. Right. Well, I’m just thinking, with this being your first flight in a while -”

“A _long_ while,” added Crowley, who was once again gaining height for what Aziraphale (correctly) assumed would be another string of stunts.

“Yes, well, perhaps you ought to take it easy?” he called. He drifted up a little, and tried not to wince when Crowley dropped past him into another loop. “I know it’s not the same, but really, it _has_ been a while since you used these particular er, well, not muscles, exactly, but -”

Crowley laughed. “Nah, doesn’t work like that, angel! S’all magic.”

“Yes, I know, but,” Aziraphale persisted, “you _can_ hurt your wings. I’ve never injured mine through _overuse_ \- I’m not even sure it’s possible - but it being your first flight, maybe a little discretion would be prudent?”

Crowley drifted down to him, and for a moment the two hovered on the thermal, eye-to-eye. Crowley hadn’t had his sunglasses on for their walk, and so Aziraphale could see the bright yellow of his eyes, even in the dark of the coast, and just as clearly could see the unabashedly fond way Crowley was looking at him. “Angel,” Crowley said, softly, and Aziraphale preened a little, “sod off. This is fun.”

The smile dropped off Aziraphale’s face and, just as quickly, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Well _fine_ ,” he snapped. “Be that way. But don’t come crying to me for healing, later.”

“I won’t,” said Crowley, before bombing off again, soaring down the cliffs.

In spite of Crowley’s long-standing personal vow to not lie to Aziraphale, “I won’t” eventually turned out to be quite a big one. Shortly after their exchange, Aziraphale grew tired of hovering and watching anxiously, and retreated to the cliffs to sit on the edge, legs dangling over the side, to watch anxiously from there instead. Crowley carried on in much the same fashion - higher, faster, more spinning - for another hour or so, when suddenly, on the bottom of a loop, Aziraphale saw his right wing jerk a little, and Crowley’s speed dropped considerably to something that could almost be described as ‘sedate’. For a moment, Aziraphale spread his own wings, prepared to drop down and help, but Crowley seemed to be alright to flap slowly, gingerly, back up to the cliff’s edge. 

He lighted on the rocks next to Aziraphale, who smiled up at him, and then spared a significant look to Crowley’s right wing, which the demon was holding cocked at an awkward angle, as if to stretch a cramp. “Don’t say a word,” Crowley growled, making to cross his arms and then wincing and cradling his right elbow in his left hand.

Instead of saying a word, Aziraphale said four: “I told you so.”

Crowley glowered. “You bastard.”

“And I shan’t heal you. You’ll have to rest up and let it recover on its own, I’m afraid*.” He stood up, dusted off his plaid trousers, and fluttered his wings away, out of sight.

[* _Although in truth, he would help with healing, a little, after about a week. He never could resist when Crowley put the effort into looking extra pathetic and besides, he kept insisting Aziraphale had to help him change the channel on the telly, because his right arm was too sore to operate the remote. It was very inconvenient_.]

“Rather cruel of you,” Crowley remarked, hissing when Aziraphale carefully took the strained wing in his hands and folded it carefully into a neutral position. To ensure it stayed, he kept a gentle hand on the leading edge, and stuck close to Crowley’s side as the two of them started their walk back to the cottage, slowly.

Aziraphale tutted. “I think not. I set very clear terms. You were aware of the terms, and I believe in response, you told me to sod off.”

Crowley grumbled under his breath about that for a bit, and then paused. “It hurts,” he whined, as they drew closer to home, and although Aziraphale was sure it probably did, he was also very sure that it didn’t hurt nearly as much as Crowley would have him believe.

“Yes, well, we can put some ice on it. And you’ll need to rest.”

The demon moaned. “I’m going to be so _bored_ , angel.”

Aziraphale considered that. As they stepped into the back garden, through the eastern gate, Aziraphale asked, “Would you like it if I read you a story?”

“I’m not a _child_.” Crowley made it to the door first, and with his good arm, pushed it open. 

“You could have fooled me,” Aziraphale remarked dryly. “Suit yourself. I’ll be in the library. I believe there’s a bottle of paracetamol in the bathroom.” He took his leave, ignoring Crowley’s over-dramatic yelp of pain when his steadying hand left the demon’s wing, and made himself a cup of tea.

Aziraphale could hear Crowley stomping around the cottage while he brewed his tea. He could hear further stomping when he took his drink and a plate of biscuits with him into the library, and settled into his chair. The stomping continued, albeit more closely and accompanied by hissing at plants, while he considered the books at hand.

There was _The Way of the World_ , which he’d been reading on his own, and was nearly finished with. And then there was the other one, _The Consultant,_ which he’d been reading with Crowley: a spy thriller, with all kinds of car chases and explosions and forbidden love affairs. It was sort of terrible, and precisely what Crowley enjoyed. And as the stomping drew closer still, Aziraphale smiled and picked it up.

Crowley’s wings were still out when he entered the library, and he was holding an ice pack on his right shoulder. Wordlessly, he stomped across the floor, flopped onto the couch, and sighed more loudly than was necessary, considering Aziraphale was only a few feet away.

The angel opened the book and began to thumb through, looking for the bookmark that had slipped down between the pages.

“What’re you reading?” Crowley asked, while the pages shuffled softly. 

“Oh, I was thinking I’d start back up with this one, the one about the spy.” He held his place with a finger and lifted the book up, the better to show Crowley the cover. The demon blinked, and then looked betrayed. 

“We were reading that together. You were going to read it _without me_?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “Well, yes. We’d stopped at an exciting bit, and I wanted to see what happened next, and I thought with you feeling poorly I might nip ahead a bit -”

“You bastard!”

“Well, I never,” sniffed Aziraphale, who most definitely _had_.

“I wanted to know what happens next too, you know.” Crowley glared at him. “It _was_ an exciting part.”

Aziraphale crossed his legs. “Well, I could read it aloud,” he said, a little short in his tone, “but I thought you said you wouldn’t like to be read to like a child.”

There was a rustling while Crowley shuffled on the couch - around his wings and the ice pack - the better to glare at Aziraphale more pointedly. “I didn’t think you were talking about _this book_.” He pointed at his partner, who was trying desperately not to laugh. From the sound of it, Crowley was too. “And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Aziraphale.”

“Reading a book?” he managed, only allowing the barest hint of a chuckle to break through. He mocked a long-suffering sigh. “Would you like me to read this aloud or not?”

Crowley laid back, and moved the ice pack from his shoulder to his wing. “If you’re going to read it anyway.” Aziraphale allowed himself a smile, and resumed his search for their place. “Shall I miracle up a bottle of wine?”

He found the bookmark just as Crowley snapped a wineglass into reality on the table at his elbow, accompanied by a nice dessert red, rich with sweet overtones and a hint of chocolate. He wiggled back into the plush chair, just a little more. “That’s lovely,” he said. “Thank you, dear.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Crowley was sprawled out now, propped up just slightly on a pillow to facilitate drinking without spilling, and though Aziraphale couldn’t see his face, he could hear the smile in his voice. “Go on, let’s see what happens next.”

_END_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this wild creation. The beautiful art at the end is, believe it or not, the picture that I saw that inspired this _entire fanfiction_ (talk about getting carried away haha), and is drawn by the wonderfully talented Cat [(Tumblr link to original post)](https://thatmightyheart.tumblr.com/post/186340055737/birds-of-a-feather) [(Twitter link to original post)](https://twitter.com/thatmightyheart/status/1151278955879718912), who graciously gave permission for me to include the image in the fic itself. Please support your fanartists - they are amazing souls with incredible talent to create AND inspire!
> 
> I do have more thoughts on this fic, as well as some teasers for a sequel, but those are for another day, and will be added on as an addendum chapter another time. For now, have a wonderful day, thank you for reading, and I wish you all the best.


	33. Author's Notes

I'm back baby, like I never left (I didn't).

Anyway, I want to take this little chapter to do two things: thank everyone who made this fic even remotely what it was, and also let you all know what's to come!

First of all, the thank-yous:

  * Thank you to Nat and Jenn, who were nothing if not completely encouraging of this entire fanfic, and who egged me on at the very beginning. As well, thank you to those two who helped me through the writing of this while we all worked through some terrible, sad shit together. You guys are wonderful friends, and I'm lucky to have you. 
  * On a related note, thank you to Hanna [(xenontrioxide),](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenontrioxide/pseuds/xenontrioxide) who was so encouraging of this ridiculousness when it started, as well. It was fun writing fanfic with you for those few brief months, even if we were in different fandoms. I miss you every single day, and I wish you were still here.
  * Thank you to youtube channel [Pecos Han](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAQpSHsgUcNt6uCOjpgD8kw)k, for the amazing storm videos that kept me going and taught me a lot about lightning and storms! Also our wildlife friends. 
  * Thank you to Reed Timmer, who is absolutely insane but I love you anyway.
  * Thank you, thank you, thank you to the ACE OMENS discord server, who relentlessly drove me to write more, update more, and share this story with the world. It's easy to get yourself in the mindset of "no one is going to care if I don't finish this, it's not even good", but it's _considerably_ harder to do so when you have a group of people who hound you persistently that that is NOT the case and they will be VERY CRANKY if you continue with that line of thinking. You guys the real MVPs tbh.
  * Also particularly to [Kedreeva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva), who must have challenged me to about 5 billion writing races throughout the writing of this fic. Even though I was eating dinner at most of those times (regardless of time of day, because for some reason your internal writing clock is the same as my internal dinner clock????), without your consistent pings I would have never a) eaten dinner or b) finished this fic.
  * AND OF COURSE thank you to EVERYONE WHO READ THIS STORY!!!! I can't believe you guys; you were all so sweet and encouraging and I'm so glad I got to share this with you. The Good Omens fandom is something else entirely, and I feel very lucky to get to play a part in it. 



Which leads me to part 2 of this note: what's to come! If you enjoyed this fic, I very much hope that you will stick around for more, because I have 2 sequels planned/outlined that, Lord-willing-and-the-creek-don't-rise I will one day get to write and share with everybody. They continue in the same "universe" (so to speak) as this story, and will feature further adventures of our favorite angel, demon, and humans, as well as a few newcomers I haven't written about yet! Also, fun stuff like government conspiracies, secret bases, aliens, science fiction, and tropical fish.

Although I am eager to share these stories with you guys, I do also have a full-time human job and stuff, so updates may be a little slow to come. I promise as soon as I have something to share with you, it will go up here! You can also check [my tumblr](https://luckyspike.tumblr.com/), but honestly that's mostly just shitposting and memes so it's perhaps not the best place to get current information lol.

In the interim, if you enjoyed this story and the little "universe" it's set in, you can find other stories that take place in the same universe in my collection [Armageddon and the Associated Entities](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530020). There is also a collection of winter-themed fics which features the whole Yeshua storyline referenced in this fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21654037/chapters/51636757).

Anyway, that's all I have for now. Thank you so, so much once more for sharing this with me. It's incredibly humbling to read some of the comments you all left, and to know you got some joy out of a silly idea I had (that spun wildly out of control in true Good Omens fashion lol). I hope to continue to write more soon, and to share more good times with you all!


End file.
